Court Opinion

ID: 9428807
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:24:50.514188+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:15.394348
License: Public Domain

Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case, both Texas and California assert the right to levy state death taxes on the estate of Howard Hughes. The laws of each State impose an inheritance tax on the real and tangible personal property located within its borders, and upon the intangible personalty, wherever situated, of a person domiciled in the State at the time of death. Under the laws of Texas and California, an individual has but one domicile at any time. Taxing officials in each State assert that Howard Hughes was domiciled in their State at the time of his death. The issue before us is whether the Federal Inter-pleader Act, 28 U. S. C. §1335, provides a jurisdictional basis for resolution of inconsistent death tax claims by the officials of two States.
I
This case is the sequel to California v. Texas, 437 U. S. 601 (1978). There, California petitioned for leave to file a complaint against Texas under this Court’s original jurisdiction. At that time, we denied the motion. In concurring opinions, however, four Justices suggested that a determination of Hughes’ domicile might be obtained in federal district court pursuant to the Federal Interpleader Act, 28 U. S. C. §^.1
*87Three weeks after the decision in California v. Texas, the administrator of the estate filed a statutory interpleader action in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas. Asserting that the officials of the two States were seeking to tax the estate on the basis of inconsistent claims that each of their respective States was Howard Hughes’ domicile at death, it requested the District Court to adjudicate the issue of domicile. The District Court entered a temporary restraining order prohibiting the California and Texas taxing officials from pursuing domicile-based inheritance tax claims in any other forum, including their own state courts.
The District Court then dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction for failure to satisfy the requirement of § 1335 that there be diversity of citizenship between at least two adverse claimants. It found that the administrator was not a claimant. Among the claimants, it held that the County Treasurer for Los Angeles County was a citizen of California for diversity purposes, citing Moor v. County of Alameda, 411 U. S. 693 (1973). The court ruled, however, that the State of Texas, rather than its taxing officials, was the opposing claimant and that because a State is not a citizen of itself for diversity purposes, Postal Telegraph Cable Co. v. *88Alabama, 155 U. S. 482 (1894), the action did not involve two or more adverse claimants of diverse citizenship as required by the statute.
The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed the order of dismissal. Lummis v. White, 629 F. 2d 397 (1980). In addition to the County Treasurer, it found the administrator of the estate, a citizen of Nevada, to be a claimant for the purposes of statutory interpleader. It recognized that Treinies v. Sunshine Mining Co., 308 U. S. 66 (1939), held that a citizenship of a disinterested stakeholder could not be considered in determining interpleader jurisdiction. Reasoning, however, that here the administrator’s legal duty of preserving the estate's assets from the double death tax liability and his assertion that Hughes was domiciled in Nevada, which has no state death tax, made the administrator an interested stakeholder, the court further held that the citizenship of an interested stakeholder may be considered for purposes of establishing diversity under § 1335. The requisite diversity — between the administrator and the County Treasurer of Los Angeles County — was therefore present.
The Court of Appeals went on to reject the States’ claim that although the suit was nominally against state officials, it was in effect a suit against two sovereign States barred by the Eleventh Amendment. Recognizing that Worcester County Trust Co. v. Riley, 302 U. S. 292 (1937), had squarely held that an interpleader action in all critical respects similar to this one was barred by the Eleventh Amendment, the Court of Appeals, relying on the concurring views of four Justices in California v. Texas, held that Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651 (1974), had silently, but effectively, overruled Worcester, and that the Eleventh Amendment as interpreted in Edelman did not bar the interpleader action.
The California officials petitioned for certiorari and, at the same time, filed a new motion seeking leave to file a com*89plaint against Texas under this Court’s original jurisdiction. Because of the troubling issues involving federal-court jurisdiction in such disputes, we granted certiorari. 452 U. S. 904.
II
In Worcester County Trust Co. v. Riley, supra, the States of California and Massachusetts each claimed to be the domicile of a decedent and to have the right to assess death taxes on his entire intangible estate. A federal interpleader action followed, the estate naming as defendant the revenue officers of California and Massachusetts. This Court unanimously held that the case was in reality a suit against the States and that it was barred by the Eleventh Amendment. In arriving at this conclusion, the Court applied the accepted rules (1) that “a suit nominally against individuals, but restraining or otherwise affecting their action as state officers, may be in substance a suit against the state, which the Constitution forbids,” 302 U. S., at 296, and (2) that “generally, suits to restrain action of state officials can, consistently with the constitutional prohibition, be prosecuted only when the action sought to be restrained is without the authority of state law or contravenes the statutes or Constitution of the United States.” Id., at 297. The Court held that there could be no credible claim of a violation of federal law since it was clear from prior cases that inconsistent determinations by the courts of two States as to the domicile of a taxpayer did not raise a substantial federal constitutional question. The Court also concluded that the claim that the officials were acting without authority under state law was insufficient. Hence, “[sjince the proposed action is the performance of a duty imposed by the statute of the state upon state officials through whom alone a state can act, restraint of their action, which the bill of complaint prays, is restraint of state action, and the suit is in substance one against the State which the Eleventh Amendment forbids.” Id., at 299-300.
*90The Court of Appeals’ opinion that Edelman v. Jordan had overruled Worcester rested on a passage in the Edelman opinion that it interpreted as limiting the bar of the Eleventh Amendment to suits “by private parties seeking to impose a liability which must be paid from public funds in the state treasury.” 415 U. S., at 663. Because the interpleader plaintiff, the administrator of the estate, had sought only prospective relief, the appellate court held that the Eleventh Amendment did not bar his suit.
We are unpersuaded by this view of Edelman. That case involved a suit against state officials claiming that their administration of a particular federal-state program was contrary to federal regulations and the Constitution. Among other things, the plaintiffs sought a judgment for benefits that had not been paid them. The case was against individual officers who allegedly were violating federal law, and it therefore arguably fell outside the reach of the Eleventh Amendment under Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123 (1908). Edelman held, however, that the case was in effect a suit against the State itself because a judgment payable from state funds was demanded. It was correctly noted that Ford Motor Co. v. Department of Treasury of Indiana, 323 U. S. 459 (1945), was authority for this result.
Edelman did not hold, however, that the Eleventh Amendment never applies unless a judgment for money payable from the state treasury is sought.2 It would be a novel proposition indeed that the Eleventh Amendment does not bar a suit to enjoin the State itself simply because no money judgment is sought. The Eleventh Amendment reads: “The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to *91extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State . . . Thus, the Eleventh Amendment by its terms clearly applies to a suit seeking an injunction, a remedy available only from equity. To adopt the suggested rule, limiting the strictures of the Eleventh Amendment to a suit for a money judgment, would ignore the explicit language and contradict the very words of the Amendment itself. Edelman did not embrace, much less imply, any such proposition.
Neither did Edelman deal with a suit naming a state officer as defendant, but not alleging a violation of either federal or state law. Thus, there was no occasion in the opinion to cite or discuss the unanimous opinion in Worcester that the Eleventh Amendment bars suits against state officers unless they are alleged to be acting contrary to federal law or against the authority of state law. Edelman did not hold that suits against state officers who are not alleged to be acting against federal or state law are permissible under the Eleventh Amendment if only prospective relief is sought. Whether or not that would be the preferable rule, Edelman v. Jordan did not adopt it.
Furthermore, if that were to be the law, Worcester must in major part be overruled. We are unwilling, however, to overrule that decision and narrow the scope of the Eleventh Amendment to the extent that action would entail. We hold that the Eleventh Amendment bars the statutory inter-pleader sought in this case. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is

Reversed.

 The Federal Interpleader Act, 28 U. S. C. § 1335, provides:
“(a) The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action of interpleader or in the nature of interpleader filed by any person, firm, or corporation, association, or society having in his or its custody or possession money or property of $500 or more, or having issued a note, bond, certificate, policy of insurance, or other instrument of value or amount of $500 or more, or providing for the delivery or payment or the loan of money or property of such amount or value, or being under any obligation written or unwritten to the amount of $500 or more, if
*87“(1) Two or more adverse claimants, of diverse citizenship as defined in section 1332 of this title, are claiming or may claim to be entitled to such money or property, or to any one or more of the benefits arising by virtue of any note, bond, certificate, policy or other instrument or arising by virtue of any such obligation; and if (2) the plaintiff has deposited such money or property or has paid the amount of or the loan or other value of such instrument or the amount due under such obligation into the registry of the court, there to abide the judgment of the court, or has given bond payable to the clerk of the court in such amount and with such surety as the court or judge may deem proper, conditioned upon the compliance by the plaintiff with the future order or judgment of the court with respect to the subject matter of the controversy.
“(b) Such an action may be entertained although the titles or claims of the conflicting claimants do not have a common origin, or are not identical, but are adverse to and independent of one another.”

 The dissent miseharacterizes Edelman as asserting that the Eleventh Amendment bars “only” suits seeking money damages. Post, at 96. Edelman recognized the rule “that a suit by private parties seeking to impose a liability which must be paid from public funds in the state treasury is barred by the Eleventh Amendment,” 415 U. S., at 663, but never asserted that such suits were the only ones so barred.