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Cite as: 524 U. S. 381 (1998)

387

Opinion of the Court

courts for purposes of removal. . . . Nothing in the ju-
risdictional statutes suggests that the presence of re-
lated state law claims somehow alters the fact that [the]
complaints, by virtue of their federal claims, were ‘civil
actions’ within the federal courts’
‘original jurisdic-
Id., at 166 (citation omitted).
tion.’ ”

See also Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Taylor, 481 U. S. 58
(1987); Franchise Tax Bd. of Cal. v. Construction Laborers
Vacation Trust for Southern Cal., 463 U. S. 1, 7–12 (1983).
This statement, however, and others like it, appear in the
context of cases involving both federal-law and state-law
claims. And the Seventh Circuit found a signiﬁcant differ-
ence between such cases and cases in which the Eleventh
Amendment applies to some of the federal-law claims. See
In the former cases the state-law claims
116 F. 3d, at 1152.
fall within the supplemental
jurisdiction of the federal
courts. Supplemental jurisdiction allows federal courts to
hear and decide state-law claims along with federal-law
claims when they “are so related to claims in the action
within such original jurisdiction that they form part of the
28 U. S. C. § 1367(a); see Chi-
same case or controversy.”
cago, supra, at 164–166. Cf. § 1441(c) (explicitly providing
discretionary removal jurisdiction over entire case where
federal claim is accompanied by a “separate and independ-
ent” state-law claim).
In the latter cases, the comparable
claims do not fall within the federal courts’ “pendent” juris-
diction, but rather, it is argued, are claims that the Eleventh
Amendment prohibits the federal courts from deciding.

Second, the argument emphasizes the “jurisdictional” na-
ture of this difference. The Seventh Circuit, for example,
said: “Claims barred by sovereign immunity stand on differ-
ent footing than other claims that are not independently re-
movable, because of the afﬁrmative limitation on jurisdiction
imposed by the sovereign immunity doctrines.” 116 F. 3d,
at 1152 (citing Frances J., supra, at 340–341, and n. 4). That
is to say, according to the Court of Appeals, neither the law