Court Opinion

ID: 9426489
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:18:07.387574+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:01.296585
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Brennan,
with whom Mr. Justice Marshall and Mr. Justice Blackmun join, dissenting.
Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U. S. 715, 725-726 (1966), held:
“Pendent jurisdiction, in the sense of judicial power, exists whenever there is a claim ‘arising under [the] Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority . . . ,’ U. S. Const., Art. Ill, § 2, and the relationship between that claim and the state claim permits the conclusion that the entire action before the court comprises but one constitutional ‘case.’ The federal claim must have substance sufficient to confer subject matter jurisdiction on the court. . . . The state and federal claims must derive from a common nucleus of operative fact. But if, considered without regard to their federal or state character, a plaintiff’s claims are such that he would ordinarily be expected to try them all in one judicial proceeding, then, assuming substantiality of the federal issues, there is power in federal courts to hear the whole.
“That power need not be exercised in every case in which it is found to exist. It has consistently been recognized that pendent jurisdiction is a doctrine of discretion, not of plaintiff’s right. Its justification lies in considerations of judicial economy, convenience and fairness to litigants; if these are not present a federal court should hesitate to exer*20cise jurisdiction over state claims, even though bound to apply state law to them.” (Footnotes omitted.)
I
Gibbs concerned a state-law claim jurisdictionally pendent to one of federal law, but no reason appears why the identical principles should not equally apply to pendent state-law claims involving the joinder of additional parties. In either case the Art. Ill question concerns only the subject matter and not the in personam jurisdiction of the federal courts. In either case the question of Art. Ill power in the federal judiciary to exercise subject-matter jurisdiction concerns whether the claims asserted are such as “would ordinarily be expected to [be tried] in one judicial proceeding,” and the question of discretion addresses “considerations of judicial economy, convenience and fairness to litigants.” 1
To recognize that the addition of parties under the pendent jurisdiction of the federal courts will sometimes alter the balance of “judicial economy, convenience and fairness,” or sometimes threaten to embroil federal courts in the resolution of uncertain questions of state law, and thereby make the exercise of this discretionary jurisdiction inappropriate, is only to speak to the question *21of the proper exercise of judicial discretion in the circumstances and does not vitiate the Gibbs analysis or its application to the question of pendent-party jurisdiction. To fail to recognize the applicability of Gibbs to the situation of pendent parties as well as claims would often compel a result aptly described by the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit:
“ ‘[I]t would be an unjustifiable waste of judicial and professional time — indeed, a travesty on sound judicial administration — to allow plaintiff to try his [federal and state claims against certain codefend-ants] in Federal court but to require him to prosecute a claim involving precisely the same facts against [a codefendant joined pursuant only to the pendent state-law claim] in a State court.’ ” Schulman v. Huck Finn, Inc., 472 F. 2d 864, 866 (1973) (quoting 350 F. Supp. 853, 858 (Minn. 1972)).
In upholding an exercise of pendent-party jurisdiction under Gibbs principles in that case, the Court of Appeals reaffirmed, 472 F. 2d, at 867, an earlier decision of that court by my Brother Blackmun, Hatridge v. Aetna Cas. & Surety Co., 415 F. 2d 809 (1969). Therein my Brother Blackmun, applying Gibbs principles in finding appropriate the exercise of federal pendent-party jurisdiction, set forth an analysis with which I am in complete accord:
“[In] appropriate cases [pendent-party jurisdiction] makes good sense; it avoids forum shopping and multiple actions; it tends to reduce costs for litigants; and it avoids the waste of already heavily burdened judicial time.” Id., at 817.
II
The Court today does not disclaim the applicability of Gibbs to the question of federal pendent-party juris*22diction. Rather, recognizing sub silentio the absurd results it would create by a disclaimer of the possibility of federal pendent-party jurisdiction — whether under the label of “ancillary” jurisdiction or that of “pendent party,” see Moor v. County of Alameda, 411 U. S. 693, 714-715 (1973) — in a variety of possible contexts under various jurisdictional statutes and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure,2 the Court declines “to lay down any sweeping pronouncement upon the existence or exercise of such jurisdiction.” Ante, at 18. The Court instead reaches its result — the proclamation of a per se rule forbidding pendent jurisdiction over claims arising under state law against local governmental units when joined with a § 1983 claim even where such claims “derive from a common nucleus of operative fact” — by purporting to find that “in this case Congress has by implication” expressed its disapproval of federal pendent-party jurisdiction “over a party such as Spokane County.” Ante, at 19. That result is demonstrably untenable.
The Court seeks to justify its per se rule by analysis of the congressional will as expressed in the federal statutes involved — 28 U. S. C. § 1343 (3) and 42 U. S. C. § 1983.3 The test the Court announces is “whether by *23virtue of the statutory grant of subject-matter jurisdiction, upon which petitioner’s principal claim . . . rests, Congress has addressed itself to the party as to whom jurisdiction pendent to the principal claim is sought.” Ante, at 16. At one level of analysis, this test is of course meaningless, being capable of application to all cases, because all instances of asserted pendent-party jurisdiction will by definition involve a party as to whom Congress has impliedly “addressed itself” by not expressly conferring subject-matter jurisdiction on the federal courts. But, the Court says, it is drawing “deductions . . . from [the] congressional statutes as to whether Congress wanted to grant this sort of jurisdiction to federal courts,” ante, at 17, and it “conclude [s] that in this case Congress has by implication declined.” Ante, at 19. It is apparent, however, that analysis of the statutory enactments involved, their legislative history, and the congressional policies embodied therein belies the Court’s assertion that its purported test for determining the propriety of pendent-party jurisdiction yields the result reached today.
A
The purely jurisdictional statute involved in this case, 28 U. S. C. § 1343 (3), in no way speaks to the issue of pendent-party jurisdiction in respect to joinder of defendants under pendent state-law claims. On its face that statute speaks only to jurisdiction over civil actions *24“authorized by law to be commenced by any person,” and plainly does not address the question of what parties shall be joined as defendants. Accordingly, the Court necessarily argues its proposition from “the scope of the cause of action,” ante, at 17, created by § 1983. But the legislative history of that enactment plainly gives no support to the Court’s argument that Congress by implication intended to preclude the exercise of federal jurisdiction over state-law claims against local governmental units where such jurisdiction would otherwise lie under application of standard principles.
Our precedents, Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167 (1961), and Moor v. County of Alameda, supra, firmly establish that the sole rationale for construing the “persons” susceptible of liability under § 1983 as excluding local units of government lies in the legislative history of the so-called Sherman Amendment to the Act of April 20, 1871, § 1 of which enacted into law the first version of the present § 1983.4 The Senate approved one version of the Amendment proposed by Senator Sherman which would have expressly provided for local governmental liability,5 and the House rejected it.6 The Conference Committee reported another version7 and the House rejected the Conference Report.8 Thereafter, the Senate acceded to the House rejection of the Sherman Amendment and both Houses substituted in its place § 6 of the 1871 Act, the. first version of the present 42 U. S. C. § 1986.9 The rejection of the Sherman Amendment, and nothing more, has been the basis upon which we have *25construed § 1983 liability as not encompassing local governmental units. Monroe v. Pape, supra, at 188 — 191; Moor v. County of Alameda, 411 U. S., at 707-710. But as those cases recognize, the reason for the House rejection of the Amendment, as stated by Mr. Poland, House Manager of the Conference Committee Report, was that “the House had solemnly decided that in their judgment Congress had no constitutional power to impose any obligation upon county and town organizations, the mere instrumentality for the administration of State law.” Cong. Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess., 804 (1871) (emphasis supplied). See Monroe v. Pape, supra, at 190; Moor v. County of Alameda, supra, at 708. This judgment of the House respecting its lack of constitutional power to “impose . . . liability” “as a matter of federal law,” id., at 710 n. 27 (emphasis in original), on local governmental units pervades the legislative history of the aborted Sherman Amendment.10
In marked contrast in the legislative history of that proposed Amendment, however, is the absence of expression of hostility to federal judicial forums entertaining claims arising under state law. The opponents of the Sherman Amendment were, as the legislative history reveals, fully aware of several existing state laws respecting local government tort liability.11 Moreover, the opponents of the proposed Amendment, who consistently objected to the imposition of liability upon local governmental units as a matter of substantive federal law, also consistently expressed their views respecting the enter*26tainment in federal forums of state-law claims against local governmental units.
“[M]y colleague on this committee says that it is a common practice for the courts of the United States, in the exercise of the judicial powers granted to them in the Constitution, to enforce the performance of judgments against municipalities of this kind, such as counties and cities. I answer him that he, as well as any other intelligent lawyer of this House, well knows that that proposition is true to this extent only, that the Federal courts in the exercise of this grant of judicial powers may, where they have the jurisdiction under the Constitution, compel these municipalities to execute their contracts, and that is all. To execute their contracts; but let it be remembered that no decree of a Federal court has gone to the extent of saying that any one of these divisions should execute its own contracts except in precise compliance with the law of the State, in precise accordance with its own contract and the law upon which it was based, and not in pursuance of any law dictated to it by Congress. In other words, the extent of judicial power hitherto exercised in that direction has been confined to the execution of civil contracts, such as the payment of corporation and municipal bonds issued under State authority, where the courts of the United States had jurisdiction, and then only according to the law of the State recognizing and enforcing fully and kindly, and in all respects within the precise letter of the Constitution, the right of the State to govern itself, to regulate its municipal interests, to say whether a county or State may subscribe to a railroad, may issue or put out bonds and securities in a particular way, how those securities may be made payable and their *27payment made certain. If any county or city fails to perform its obligations its contracts can be enforced.” Cong. Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess., 789 (1871) (remarks of Mr. Kerr) (emphasis supplied).
“The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Shellabarger] said this morning that the Supreme Court has decided in favor of this power on the part of Congress. It has done no such thing. Where a State has authorized a city or county to make a contract, and when, under the law of the State, they have made a contract binding themselves, the Supreme Court of the United States has said that they were liable to be sued for the enforcement of that contract. That is all the Supreme Court of the United States have [sic] ever decided in regard to the liability of municipal corporations. When the State which created them has authorized them to bind themselves by a contract, and they have done so, the court has very properly said that the courts were open for the enforcement of such contracts, as for enforcing the contracts of other parties. I PRESUME, TOO, THAT WHERE A STATE HAD IMPOSED A DUTY UPON SUCH MUNICIPALITY, AND PROVIDED THEY SHOULD BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES CAUSED BY FAILURE TO PERFORM SUCH DUTY, THAT AN ACTION WOULD BE ALLOWED TO BE MAINTAINED AGAINST THEM IN THE COURTS OF THE UNITED STATES UNDER THE ORDINARY RESTRICTIONS AS TO JURISDICTION. But the enforcing a liability, existing by their own contract, or by a State law, in the courts, is a very widely different thing from devolving a new duty or liability upon them by the national Government, which has no power either to create or destroy them, *28and no power or control over them whatever.” Id., at 794 (remarks of Mr. Poland) (emphasis supplied).
“Congress has never asserted or attempted to assert, so far as I know, any such authority. That amendment claims the power in the General Government to go into the States of this Union and lay such obligations as it may please upon the municipalities, which are the creations of the States alone. Now, sir, that is an exceedingly wide and sweeping power. I am unable to find a proper foundation for it. Though I am not disposed here and now to discuss it very minutely, I wish to say that thus far I am unable to see where the authority can rest. I listened with the utmost respect, and with all the attention in my power, to the argument of the gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. Shellabar-ger,] the chairman of the committee of conference, to see if' I could ascertain just where he placed it, and I think I shall do him no wrong when I say that he wholly failed to show the House where the power resides. He did undertake to find some parallel in other action of the judiciary of the United States toward these municipalities, growing out of contracts; but, sir, when a municipality, under the authority given by a State, makes a contract it thereby lays itself liable to every remedy upon that contract, and it is liable to be sued by its own consent, and with the consent of the State that created it, in any court having jurisdiction of the subject matter of that contract.
“This we all understand very well; but here it is proposed, not to carry into effect an obligation which rests upon the municipality, but to create that obligation, and that is the provision I am un*29able to assent to.” Id., at 795 (remarks of Mr. Blair) (emphasis supplied).
“. . . [I]n the first place, I wish to remark that the decisions that have been referred to, those of Knox vs. Lee county and the others, go to this extent only, if I understand rightly their scope: that where a State imposes a duty upon county officers or State municipal corporations, the exercise of which is necessary to give effect to judgments or decrees of the United States courts, the latter can enforce the performance of that duty. In other words, where by the laws of a State the board of supervisors of a county, or the common council of a city, are authorized to levy a tax and collect funds to pay a judgment, for the purpose of enforcing satisfaction of the judgment, the United States court, by mandamus can compel those State officers, those officers of a municipal corporation, to perform that duty.
“But there is no duty imposed by the Constitution of the United States, or usually by State laws, upon a county to protect the people of that county against the commission of the offenses herein enumerated, such as the burning of buildings or any other injury to property or injury to person. Police powers are not conferred upon counties as corporations; they are conferred upon cities that have qualified legislative power. AND SO FAR AS CITIES ARE CONCERNED, WHERE THE EQUAL PROTECTION REQUIRED TO BE AFFORDED BY A STATE IS IMPOSED UPON A CITY BY STATE LAWS, PERHAPS THE UNITED STATES COURTS COULD ENFORCE ITS PERFORMANCE.” Ibid, (remarks of Mr. Burchard) (emphasis supplied) ,12
*30It is difficult to imagine a clearer recognition by-opponents of extension of liability under federal law to a “person” of the difference between the application of federal substantive law to a given party and the entertainment of state-law claims respecting that party in federal court, or an instance where the legislative action is more clearly premised upon that distinction. Although the Court purports to be “deducting]” the expressed congressional will as manifested in statutes and their legislative history, today's result is wholly belied by these crystal-clear expressions.
B
Today’s result not only is insupportable under the Court’s purported test for ascertaining the propriety of pendent-party jurisdiction in the federal courts, but, *31more importantly, it wholly disregards the congressional intent and policy in enacting the various Civil Rights Acts including the present § 1983. For, to an extent perhaps unparalleled in our history, the post-Civil War Civil Rights Acts had as a focal point the provision that claims brought under those Acts should be entertained in federal judicial forums. The Civil Rights Acts were enacted in an era of “national feeling born of the Civil War. Nationalism was triumphant; in national administration was sought its vindication.” F. Frankfurter & J. Landis, The Business of the Supreme Court 64 (1928). Contemporaneous with the passage of the Civil Rights Acts was the Act of March 3, 1875, which, in conferring general federal-question jurisdiction upon the federal courts, thereby made those courts “the primary and powerful reliances for vindicating every right given by the Constitution, the laws, and treaties of the United States.” Id., at 65; Zwickler v. Koota, 389 U. S. 241, 247 (1967). “In thus expanding federal judicial power, Congress imposed the duty upon all levels of the federal judiciary to give due respect to a suitor’s choice of a federal forum for the hearing and decision of his federal constitutional claims.” Id., at 248.
Although there has been disagreement among us upon the question of the precise scope of § 1983, none of us has heretofore denied “the fact that a powerful impulse behind the creation of [§ 1983] was the purpose tho,t it be available in, and be shaped through, original federal tribunals,” or has forgotten “how important providing a federal trial court was among the several purposes of the Ku Klux Act.” Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S., at 252, 251 (Frankfurter, J., dissenting) (emphasis supplied).13
“The predecessor of § 1983 was ... an important *32part of the basic alteration in our federal system wrought in the Reconstruction era through federal legislation and constitutional amendment. As a *33result of the new structure of law that emerged in the post-Civil War era — and especially of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was its centerpiece — the role of the Federal Government as a guarantor of basic federal rights against state power was clearly established. . . . Section 1983 opened the federal courts to private citizens, offering a uniquely federal remedy against incursions under the claimed authority of state law upon rights secured by the Constitution and laws of the Nation.” Mitchum v. Foster, 407 U. S. 225, 238-239 (1972) (footnotes omitted).
An extensive review of the legislative history of § 1983 in Monroe v. Pape, supra, at 173-180, led this Court to conclude:
“It is abundantly clear that one reason the legislation was passed was to afford a federal right in federal courts because, by reason of prejudice, passion, neglect, intolerance or otherwise, state laws might not be enforced and the claims of citizens to the enjoyment of rights, privileges, and immunities guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment might be denied by the state agencies.” 365 U. S., at 180; id., at 193 (Harlan, J., concurring).
Review of that same legislative history in Mitchum v. Foster, supra, at 238-242,14 led us to proclaim it
*34“evident that Congress - clearly conceived that it was altering the relationship between the States and the Nation with respect to the protection of federally created rights; it was concerned that state instrumentalities could not protect those rights; it realized that state officers might, in fact, be antipathetic to the vindication of those rights; and it believed that these failings extended to the state courts.
“Section 1983 was thus a product of a vast transformation from the concepts of federalism that had prevailed in the- late 18th century .... The very purpose of § 1983 was to interpose the federal courts between the States and the people, as guardians of the people’s federal, rights — to protect the people from unconstitutional action under color of state law, ‘whether that action be executive, legislative, or judicial.’ ” 407 U. S., at 242.
But by the announcement of its per se rule today, the Court undermines past teachings that the availability of a federal forum for claims brought pursuant to § 1983 is crucially important, and in one fell swoop erases the leg*35islative intent that those teachings reflect.15 After today, a suitor seeking redress in a federal forum under § 1983 and redress for the same wrongs under state law must split his case, and he is remitted to duplicative litigation no matter how expensive, wasteful, and needless. Regardless of the balance of the discretionary factors enunciated in Gibbs; regardless of the clarity of state law respecting the pendent claim against the local governmental unit, cf. Wechsler, Federal Jurisdiction and the Revision of the Judicial Code, 13 Law & Contemp. Prob. 216, 232-233 (1948) ;16 regardless of the absolute *36identity of factual issues between the two claims, see Kates & Kouba, Liability of Public Entities Under Section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act, 45 S. Cal. L. Rev. 131, 162-163 (1972); regardless of the monetary expense and other disadvantages of duplicate litigation, see Fortune, Pendent Jurisdiction — The Problem of “Pendenting Parties,” 34 U. Pitt. L. Rev. 1, 8-9 (1972); regardless of the waste of judicial time and the “travesty on sound judicial administration,” supra, at 21, the Court by its per se rule forces upon a litigant the indefensible choice of either suffering the costs of duplicate litigation or forgoing his right, a right emphatically emphasized in the congressional policy, to a federal forum in which to be heard on his federal claim. To say that the suitor has available a state forum in which conveniently to litigate both his claims, ante, at 15,17 is patently to ignore the real issue, for it is painfully obvious that this does not result in a neutral choice by the suitor among available forums; rather it imparts a fundamental bias against utilization of the federal forum owing to the deterrent effect imposed by the needless requirement of duplicate litigation if the federal forum is chosen. P. Bator, P. Mishkin, D. Shapiro & H. Wechsler, Hart and Wechsler’s The Federal Courts and the Federal System 922-923 (2d ed. 1973). Accordingly, rather than *37paying “due respect to a suitor’s choice of a federal forum for the hearing and decision of his federal constitutional claims,” Zwickler v. Koota, 389 U. S., at 248, the Court today rides roughshod over this congressionally imposed duty and reaches a result that flies in the face of the expressed congressional intent. I dissent.

 This has been the holding of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in a series of opinions by Judge Friendly. Almenares v. Wyman, 453 F. 2d 1075 (1971); Leather’s Best, Inc. v. S. S. Mormaclynx, 451 F. 2d 800 (1971); Astor-Honor, Inc. v. Grosset & Dunlap, Inc., 441 F. 2d 627 (1971); United, States v. Heyward-Robinson Co., 430 F. 2d 1077 (1970) (concurring opinion). See also 7 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1659 (1972); Fortune, Pendent Jurisdiction — The Problem of “Pendenting Parties,” 34 U. Pitt. L. Rev. 1 (1972); Note, UMW v. Gibbs and Pendent Jurisdiction, 81 Harv. L. Rev. 657 (1968); Comment, Pendent and Ancillary Jurisdiction: Towards a Synthesis of Two Doctrines, 22 U. C. L. A. L. Rev. 1263 (1975).

 As, for example, where a defendant seeks to join under Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 14 a third-party defendant over whom there is no independent subject-matter jurisdiction. The analysis in Gibbs placed emphasis on the fact that the Federal Rules “embody 'the whole tendency of our decisions ... to require a plaintiff to try his . . . whole case at one time,’ . . . and to that extent emphasize the basis of pendent jurisdiction.” 383 U. S., at 725 n. 13. The Federal Rules directly encourage the joinder of parties as well as claims. E. g., Fed. Rules Civ. Proc. 13 (h), 14,19, 20, 22, 24, and 25.

 I agree, of course, that Congress may preclude the exercise of pendent-party jurisdiction as to particular parties or particular types of claims and that congressional determination would be binding on *23this Court. It is worthy of note, however, that Congress has not in the past expressed disapproval of our developments in the law of pendent and ancillary jurisdiction, and “[t]he only congressional enactments on this subject have, in fact, extended rather than restricted ancillary jurisdiction in a number of situations.” Baker, Toward a Relaxed View of Federal Ancillary and Pendent Jurisdiction, 33 U. Pitt. L. Rev. 759, 763 (1972).

 Cong. Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess., App. 335 (1871).

 Id., at 70A-705.

 Id., at 725.

 Id., at 749.

 Id., at 800-801.

 Id., at 804.

 Id., at 788.(remarles of Mr. Kerr); id., at 791 (remarks of Mr. Willard); id., at 793 (remarks of Mr. Poland); id., at 795 (remarks of Mr. Blair); ibid, (remarks of Mr. Burehard); id., at 799 (remarks of Mr. Farnsworth).

 Id., at 792 (Mass.); id., at 799 (N. Y.); id., at 800 (Pa.); ibid. (Ky.).

 I can find only one expression of hostility to the federal courts— *30and that ambiguous in its context — in the entire legislative history of the proposed Sherman Amendment:
“I care comparatively little about the Sherman amendment, either in its original or modified form. It is too grossly and palpably unconstitutional to receive the sanction of any court that even a Radical President or Senate might organize. The Supreme Court, thank God, has yet a decent respect for constitutional liberty and law, and it will dismiss with the contempt it merits the first case that comes before it seeking to enforce the judgments provided for in this bill, and that will be an end of the Sherman amendment. Therefore, I am not afraid of the practical effect of that piece of narrow-minded, fanatical, and malicious legislation; it overleaps itself. The old English ‘hue and cry,' or any other relic of barbarism, cannot save it.
“Our written Constitution, its limitations and restrictions, were intended to put an end forever to the exercise of all such legislative and judicial authority by the Federal Government, and leave all these matters to the several States and the people thereof. I care nothing about the minor charges, but I do protest against the continuance and application of the law of July 17, 1862, to the numerous classes of cases provided for in the proposed bill.” Id., at 789-790 (remarks of Mr. Beck).

 “See the remarks of Mr. Dawes, a member of the Committee *32which reported the Ku Klux bill, [Cong. Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess.] 476:
“ 'The first remedy proposed by this bill is a resort to the courts of the United States. Is that a proper place in which to find redress for any such wrongs? If there be power to call into the courts of the United States an offender against these rights, privileges, and immunities, and hold him to an account there, either civilly or criminally, for their infringement, I submit to the calm and candid judgment of every member of this House that there is no tribunal so fitted, where equal and exact justice would be more likely to be meted out in temper, in moderation, in severity, if need be, but always according to the law and the fact, as that great tribunal of the Constitution.’
“And see, e. g., the remarks of Mr. Cobum, id.., at 459-460:
“ ‘Whenever, then, there is a denial of equal protection by the State, the courts of justice of the nation stand with open doors, ready to receive and hear with impartial attention the complaints of those who are denied redress elsewhere. Here may come the weak and poor and downtrodden, with assurance that they shall be heard. Here may come the man smitten with many stripes and ask for redress. Here may come the nation, in her majesty, and demand the trial and punishment of offenders, when all, all other tribunals are closed. . . .
“ ‘Can these means be made effectual? Can we thus suppress these wrongs? I will say we can but try. The United States courts are further above mere local influence than the county courts; their judges can act with more independence, cannot be put under terror, as local judges can; their sympathies are not so nearly identified with those of the vicinage; the jurors are taken from the State, and not the neighborhood; they will be able to rise above prejudices or bad passions or terror more easily. The marshal, clothed with more power than the sheriff, can make arrests with certainty, and, with the aid of the General Government, can seize offenders in spite of any banded and combined resistance such as may be expected. Thus, at least, these men, who disregard all law, can be brought to trial. Here we stop. The court is to do the rest, acting under all its solemn obligations of duty to country *33and God. Can we trust it, or are we afraid of our own institutions? Does the grim shadow of the State step into the national court, like a goblin, and terrify us? Does this harmless and helpless ghost drive us from that tribunal — the State that moeks at justice, the State that licenses outlawry, the State that stands dumb when the lash and the torch and the pistol are lifted every night over the quiet citizen? We believe that we can trust our United States courts, and we propose to do so.’ ” Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S., at 253-254, n. 83 (Frankfurter, J., dissenting).

 E. g.:
“As Representative Lowe stated, the ’records of the [state] *34tribunals are searched in vain for evidence of effective redress [of federally secured rights] .... What less than this [the Civil Rights Act of 1871] will afford an adequate remedy? The Federal Government cannot serve a writ of mandamus upon State Executives or upon State courts to compel them to protect the rights, privileges and immunities of citizens .... The case has arisen . . . when the Federal Government must resort to its own agencies to carry its own authority into execution. Hence this bill throws open the doors of the United States courts to those whose rights under the Constitution are denied or impaired.’ Cong. Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess., 374-376 (1871).” Mitchum v. Foster, 407 U. S., at 240.

 See Wechsler, Federal Jurisdiction and the Revision of the Judicial Code, 13 Law & Contemp. Prob. 216, 230 (1948):
“[I]n [the] instance [of] the rights of action specially conferred by Congress in the Civil Rights Laws. . . . Congress has declared the historic judgment that within this precious area, often calling for a trial by jury, there is to be no slightest risk of nullification by state process. The danger is unhappily not past. It would be moving in the wrong direction to reduce the jurisdiction in this field — not because the interest of the state is smaller in such cases, but because its interest is outweighed by other factors of the highest national concern.” (Footnote omitted.)

 “There is a vice in federal adjudication on state grounds inhering in the fact that federal courts are not the authorized expositors of state law; there is no mechanism by which their errors in such matters can be corrected on appeal by state courts. There is a vice also, as we have recognized by liberal rules of joinder, in forcing plaintiffs who have multiple bases of action to pursue their remedies in pieces and in different courts. It is, however, possible to find a balance for these evils. The balance is achieved if jurisdiction is extended generally to claims that under joinder rules may be asserted in a single action, subject to discretion in the court to dismiss without prejudice claims resting upon state law. When uncertainty obtains as to prevailing local doctrine, when that doctrine is enmeshed in clashing policies that render any legal formulation an intrinsically changing concept, the discretion would *36be exercised to limit federal adjudication to the federal grounds. When, on the contrary, the issue turns on principles well settled by the state, the federal courts can safely undertake the full adjudication of the case.” Id., at 232-233 (footnotes omitted).

 The Court today appears to decide sub silentio a hitherto unresolved question by implying that § 1983 claims are not claims exclusively cognizable in federal court but may also be entertained by state courts. See ante, at 15, 18. This is a conclusion with which I agree.