Court Opinion

ID: 9428532
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:24:03.942355+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:14.065009
License: Public Domain

Justice Brennan,
with whom Justice Marshall, Justice Stevens, and Justice O’Connor join,
concurring in the judgment.
I agree that the judgment of the District Court dismissing petitioners’ complaint should be affirmed. But I arrive at that conclusion by a different route for I cannot agree that this case, and the jurisdiction of the federal courts over an action for damages brought pursuant to express congressional authority, is to be governed by applying a “principle of comity” grounded solely on this Court’s notion of an appropriate division of responsibility between the federal and state judicial systems. Subject only to constitutional constraints, it is exclusively Congress’ responsibility to determine the jurisdiction of the federal courts. Federal courts have historically acted within their assigned jurisdiction in accordance with established principles respecting the prudent exercise of equitable power. But this practice lends no credence to the authority which the Court asserts today to renounce jurisdiction over an entire class of damages actions brought pursuant to 42 U. S. C. § 1983.
I
Petitioners J. David Cassilly and Lynn F. Cassilly are owners of real property in St. Louis County, Mo. Petitioner Fair Assessment in Real Estate Association, Inc. (FAIR), is a not-for-profit corporation formed by real estate taxpayers in St. Louis County to promote equitable enforcement of the real property tax laws of the State of Missouri. Respondents are public officials responsible for the execution of the real property tax laws in St. Louis County. On July 2,1979, *118petitioners filed this action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, pursuant to 42 U. S. C. § 1983, contending that respondents had willfully, intentionally, and systematically deprived them of their rights to due process and equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment through inequitable property tax assessments. Petitioners alleged that respondents assessed properties with recent improvements at roughly 33!4% of current true market value, and older homes on the average of 2214% of current market value. Further they alleged that respondents targeted for reassessment all real property upon which a successful appeal had been prosecuted in the prior year. The Cassillys sought compensatory damages measured by the difference between the taxes which they paid in several years prior to the action, and the amount they contended would have been owing had they been assessed at the average rate. They sought further compensation for expenses they had incurred in their sporadic attempts to remedy the alleged unlawful assessment by resort to the state administrative mechanisms, and substantial punitive damages against each respondent. FAIR sought money damages in the amount of expenses incurred in the course of its efforts to obtain equitable enforcement of the state real property tax law.
The District Court dismissed the complaint, holding that the action was barred by the Tax Injunction Act and principles of comity.1 478 F. Supp. 1231. The judgment of the District Court was affirmed by an equally divided vote of the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit sitting en banc. 622 F. 2d 415.
*119II
The opinion for the Court sets the “principle of comity” against the strong policies of 42 U. S. C. § 1983 favoring a federal forum to vindicate deprivations of federal rights, and resolves the issue in favor of comity. In my view, there is no conflict here that could conceivably justify the unprecedented step of renouncing our assigned jurisdiction. Indeed the very cases relied on by the Court in its attempt to find some historic source for its sweeping view of the “principle of comity,” reveal the limits of that principle as a source of judicial authority.
As employed by the Court in several recent opinions, and in the opinion of the Court today, the “principle of comity” refers to the “proper respect for state functions” that organs of the National Government, most particularly the federal courts, are expected to demonstrate in the exercise of their own legitimate powers. See Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37, 44-45 (1971). So employed, the “principle of comity” is nothing more than an encapsulation of policy, albeit policy with roots in the Constitution and our federal system of government.2
While the “principle of comity” may be a source of judicial policy, it is emphatically no source of judicial power to renounce jurisdiction.3 The application of the comity principle *120has thus been limited to a relatively narrow class of cases: Only where a federal court is asked to employ its historic powers as a court of equity, and is called upon to decide whether to exercise the broadest and potentially most intrusive form of judicial authority, does “comity” have an established and substantial role in informing the exercise of the court’s discretion.4 There is little room for the “principle of *121comity” in actions at law where, apart from matters of administration, judicial discretion is at a minimum.5 Surely no judicial power to fashion novel doctrine concerning the jurisdiction of the federal courts is to be found in the Constitution itself, which provides that the judicial power “shall be vested *122in one supreme Court and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.” U. S. Const., Art. Ill, §1.
The Court relies primarily on Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. v. Huffman, 319 U. S. 293 (1943), to support its sweeping view of the comity principle. Great Lakes presented the question whether the Tax Injunction Act could be “so construed as to prohibit a declaration by federal courts concerning the invalidity of a state tax.” Id., at 299. We found no need to address that question, holding instead that “those considerations which have led federal courts of equity to refuse to enjoin the collection of state taxes, save in exceptional cases, require a like restraint in the use of the declaratory judgment procedure.” Ibid. From this the Court today reasons:
“Petitioners will not recover damages under § 1983 unless a district court first determines that respondents’ administration of the County tax system violated petitioners’ constitutional rights. In effect, the district court must first enter a declaratory judgment like that barred in Great Lakes. We are convinced that such a determination would be fully as intrusive as the equitable actions that are barred by principles of comity.” Ante, at 113.
Great Lakes does not support this reasoning. Our opinion there suggests nothing intrusive in bringing a claim involving a question of state taxation to a federal forum. Dismissal of the suit was permissible only because the claim for declaratory relief was designed to gain “an adjudication of rights in anticipation of their threatened infringement.”6 Such a *123suit, precisely like one for an injunction, would “in every practical respect operate to suspend collection of the state taxes until the litigation is ended.”7 319 U. S., at 299. No similar concern is raised by the present case.8
The jurisdiction of the federal courts over cases such as the present one reflects a considered congressional judgment. As the Court acknowledges, § 1983 “gave a federal cause of action to prisoners, taxpayers, or anyone else who was able to prove that his constitutional or federal rights had been denied by any State.” Ante, at 103-104. In addition, 42 U. S. C. § 1981 provides that “[a]ll persons . . . shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other.”9 (Emphasis added.) Congress has expressly provided jurisdiction over such claims in the district courts.10 28 U. S. C. §1343; see *124Zwickler v. Koota, 389 U. S. 241, 245-248 (1967).11 Where Congress has granted the federal courts jurisdiction, we are not free to repudiate that authority. Ibid.,12 England v. Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners, 375 U. S. 411 (1964). In England we said:
*125“There are fundamental objections to any conclusion that a litigant who has properly invoked the jurisdiction of a Federal District Court to consider federal constitutional claims can be compelled, without his consent and through no fault of his own, to accept instead a state court’s determination of those claims. Such a result would be at war with the unqualified terms in which Congress, pursuant to constitutional authorization, has conferred special categories of jurisdiction upon the federal courts, and with the principle that ‘When a Federal court is properly appealed to in a case over which it has by law jurisdiction, it is its duty to take such jurisdiction .... The right of a party plaintiff to choose a Federal court where there is a choice cannot be properly denied.’ Willcox v. Consolidated Gas Co., 212 U. S. 19, 40.” Id., at 415 (footnote omitted).
The power to control the jurisdiction of the lower federal courts is assigned by the Constitution to Congress, not to this Court. In its haste to rid the federal courts of a class of cases that it thinks unfit for federal scrutiny, the Court today departs from this fundamental precept.
III
Subject of course to constitutional constraints, the jurisdiction of the lower federal courts is subject to the plenary control of Congress. Kline v. Burke Construction Co., 260 U. S. 226, 233-234 (1922); Cary v. Curtis, 3 How. 236, 245 (1845). As pointed out supra, at 123-124, and n. 11, this case appears to fall squarely within the jurisdictional grant of 28 U. S. C. § 1343, and perhaps of 28 U. S. C. § 1331 as well. The question, then, is whether Congress has anywhere contradicted that presumptive grant of judicial author*126ity. Only one possible source of that contradiction having been suggested, I begin my analysis of the jurisdictional question with the Tax Injunction Act itself.
A
Title 28 U. S. C. § 1341 provides:
“The district courts shall not enjoin, suspend or restrain the assessment, levy or collection of any tax under State law where a plain, speedy and efficient remedy may be had in the courts of such State.”
If a suit brought under § 1983 for damages is to come within the prohibition of the Act, it would seem necessary to demonstrate that such a suit is one to “enjoin, suspend or restrain the assessment, levy or collection” of a state tax. Respondents argue that the terms “suspend” and “restrain” are words of ordinary usage, and that they are sufficiently broad to bring the present suit for damages, which respondents assert will “chill” state tax collection, within the proscriptions of the Act. In my view, the legislative history of the Act, and the case law background against which it was written, directly refute the suggestion that Congress intended those words to have the encompassing meaning respondents suggest.13
B
The federal courts have for most of their history been scrupulous in the exercise of their equitable powers to avoid unnecessary interference with the administration of state taxation. In Dows v. Chicago, 11 Wall. 108 (1871), Justice Field noted:
*127“It is upon taxation that the several States chiefly rely to obtain the means to carry on their respective governments, and it is of the utmost importance to all of them that the modes adopted to enforce the taxes levied should be interfered with as little as possible. Any delay in the proceedings of the officers, upon whom the duty is devolved of collecting the taxes, may derange the operations of government, and thereby cause serious detriment to the public.” Id., at 110.
Thus it was early held that the illegality or unconstitutionality of a state or municipal tax would not in itself provide the foundation for equitable relief in the federal courts. Id., at 109; see Boise Artesian Water Co. v. Boise City, 213 U. S. 276, 282-285 (1909).14 Consistent with equity practice, the federal courts would not enjoin the collection of state taxes, despite the possible unconstitutionality of the exaction, where there existed a “plain, adequate and complete remedy at law.” Singer Sewing Machine Co. v. Benedict, 229 U. S. 481, 488 (1913).
Although this Court, in the many cases preceding passage of the Tax Injunction Act, affirmed the need for restraint in the exercise of the power of equity in state tax cases, it never intimated that the federal forum was inappropriate where the complaint sought only a remedy in damages, and the case was otherwise within federal jurisdiction. Indeed, the Court re*128peatedly stated the contrary. See id:, at 486; Henrietta Mills v. Rutherford County, 281 U. S. 121, 127 (1930); Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. Osborne, 265 U. S. 14, 16 (1924). For example, in Henrietta Mills, a unanimous Court concluded that there was no basis for equitable relief, relying on the fact that there would have been “an adequate remedy at law, not only in the state court, but also in the Federal court if petitioner had been able to show a violation of the Federal Constitution.” 281 U. S., at 127 (emphasis added). And indeed damages actions for wrongful collection of taxes, brought against both the taxing authority and the taxing officials, were not unknown to the lower federal courts. See, e. g., Tyler v. Dane County, 289 F. 843 (WD Wis. 1923); International Paper Co. v. Burrill, 260 F. 664 (Mass. 1919). In Matthews v. Rodgers, 284 U. S. 521 (1932), only five years prior to the enactment of the Tax Injunction Act, we summarized the federal practice:
“Whenever the question has been presented, this Court has uniformly held that the mere illegality or unconstitutionality of a state or municipal tax is not in itself a ground for equitable relief in the courts of the United States. If the remedy at law is plain, adequate, and complete, the aggrieved party is left to that remedy in the state courts, ... or to his suit at law in the federal courts if the essential elements of federal jurisdiction are present.” Id., at 525-526 (citations omitted; emphasis added).
In sum, while the federal courts, prior to the passage of the Tax Injunction Act, would frequently refrain from exercising their equitable powers in state tax cases, damages actions were an established fixture of federal jurisdiction.
C
Although in 1932 Matthews v. Rodgers stated a broad principle of restraint in the exercise of federal equity powers, *129ibid., the rule was soon honored more in breach than in observance. Purporting to construe these equitable principles in state tax cases, the federal courts had become “free and easy with injunctions.”15 Thus federal remedial practice began to contrast sharply with the limits on state remedial authority, with the result that the federal court became the preferred forum for those who could properly invoke its jurisdiction: principally large out-of-state corporations. The legislative history of the Tax Injunction Act makes plain Con*130gress’ concern with this disparity, and its effect on local finances. In introducing the bill that ultimately became the Tax Injunction Act, Senator Bone explained:
“The existing practice of the Federal courts to entertain tax-injunction suits make[s] it possible for foreign corporations [exercising the diversity jurisdiction] to withhold from a State and its governmental subdivisions taxes in such vast amounts and for such long periods as to disrupt State and county finances, and thus make it possible for such corporations to determine for themselves the amount of taxes they will pay.” 81 Cong. Rec. 1416 (1937).
The Senate Report highlighted the nature of the problem being addressed:
“[Ujnjust discrimination between citizens of the State and foreign corporations doing business in such State has been the cause of much controversy. The controversies arising out of the use of the injunctive process in State tax cases would be eliminated by the passage of this bill.” S. Rep. No. 1035, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (1937) (emphasis added).16
*131Not only does the legislative focus belie respondents’ suggestion that Congress believed the federal courts not competent to handle matters involving state taxation, but the legislative history addresses directly respondents’ principal contention that Congress intended the phrase “enjoin, suspend or restrain” to bar actions for monetary relief from the federal courts. The Report of the House Judiciary Committee appends a “Legal Brief” submitted to the Committee with respect to the proposed bill, which states:
“You ask for some assistance on the question of whether the existence of an adequate remedy at law or in equity in the State courts, such as a tax-refund action, would prevent a foreign corporation pursuing the same remedy in the Federal court. In answer, [sic] will say that there might be circumstances under which the Federal courts would have no jurisdiction of such actions; for instance, where the refund action could be brought only against the State, or against the State officers under such circumstances as to amount to a suit against the State. Under the eleventh amendment to the Federal Constitution, of course, suits against the State, or suits which are in effect suits against the State, are not maintainable in the Federal courts.
“But if the refund action is permitted by State legislation or rules of decision against counties or county officers, and the money refunded has not yet reached the State exchequer, such actions, if maintainable in the *132State courts, could likewise be pursued in the Federal courts if the requisite elements of Federal jurisdiction existed.” H. R. Rep. No. 1503, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., 2-3 (1937).17
The conclusion is thus inescapable that Congress did not intend to bar actions such as this one from the federal courts. On the contrary, Congress clearly intended that the federal forum would continue to remain available in state tax cases for monetary relief despite passage of the Tax Injunction Act.
D
As understood and applied by this Court prior to the passage of the Tax Injunction Act,18 and by Congress in enacting the Tax Injunction Act, the “principle of comity” which demanded respect for state tax administration, extended precisely as far as was necessary to ensure that the federal courts not become party to the abuse of their equity power. Congress intended that federal authority be exercised with the same restraint that the States applied in the administration of their own tax system, and thus to restore the parity between the two judicial systems. But there is absolutely no support in either the cases of this Court, or in Congress' *133action, for total abdication of federal power in this field. It is thus entirely clear that as a jurisdictional matter, the federal courts have jurisdiction over claims seeking monetary relief arising from unconstitutional state taxation.
> t-H
Petitioners argue that since their federal claim is brought pursuant to 42 U. S. C. § 1983, it was not necessary to exhaust administrative remedies before commencing this action.
In First National Bank of Greeley v. Board of Commissioners of Weld County, 264 U. S. 450 (1924), we held that before a litigant complaining of alleged overassessment of taxes may bring a damages action grounded on the Constitution or statutes of the United States, that litigant must fully exhaust any administrative remedies afforded by the State.19 In Weld County, plaintiff in error brought its action under federal question jurisdiction to recover the amount of taxes levied for the years 1913 and 1914. It alleged that the taxes were assessed and collected in contravention of the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, and a federal statute20 setting forth certain limitations *134on state and local taxation in regard to national banks.21 The Court paused before addressing plaintiff in error’s substantive claim:
“We are met at the threshold of our consideration of the case with the contention that the plaintiff did not exhaust its remedies before the administrative boards and consequently cannot be heard by a judicial tribunal to assert the invalidity of the tax.” Id., at 453.
Because the plaintiff in error had not exhausted its state administrative remedies, the Court declined to consider the “question whether the tax [was] vulnerable to the challenge in respect of its validity upon any or all of the grounds set forth_”22 Id., at 456.
Although the Court did not elaborate on the underpinnings of that holding, it seems clear that it was grounded on the considerations of sound judicial administration23 and parity between the state and federal judicial systems that had his*135torically guided the federal equity courts and were later embodied in the Tax Injunction Act. Those principles, and Weld County, govern the treatment of actions at law involving state tax matters.
Petitioners seek to avoid the reach of Weld County by arguing that this case is to be controlled by the general rule stated in McNeese v. Board of Education, 373 U. S. 668 (1963), that in cases brought pursuant to 42 U. S. C. § 1983, resort to state administrative remedies is not a precondition to federal suit. As a factual matter of course, it is difficult to distinguish Weld County, which raised factual allegations that closely parallel those of the complaint at issue here.24
More importantly, while this Court has repeatedly reaffirmed that exhaustion of administrative remedies is not a precondition to a suit brought under the Civil Rights Acts, *136see, e. g., Ellis v. Dyson, 421 U. S. 426, 432-433 (1975); Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U. S. 452, 472-473 (1974); Carter v. Stanton, 405 U. S. 669, 670-671 (1972); Wilwording v. Swenson, 404 U. S. 249, 251 (1971) (per curiam); King v. Smith, 392 U. S. 309, 312, n. 4 (1968); Damico v. California, 389 U. S. 416, 416-417 (1967) (per curiam), that conclusion rests firmly on the understanding that such was the intention of Congress in enacting § 1983. Where Congress has provided that in a particular class of cases the federal courts should refrain from hearing suits brought under § 1983 until administrative remedies have been exhausted, see, e. g., 42 U. S. C. § 1997e (1976 ed., Supp. IV), there is no doubt that the federal courts are bound by that limitation. Cf. Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 475, 489-490 (1973). My view has always been that displacement of §1983 remedies can only “be justified by a clear statement of congressional intent, or, at the very least, by the presence of the most persuasive considerations of policy.”25 Id., at 518 (Brennan, J., dissenting). Surely a somewhat lesser showing is required where, as here, we are concerned not with the displacement of the § 1983 remedy, but with the deferral of federal court consideration pending exhaustion of the state administrative process. Where the obligation to require exhaustion of administrative remedies may be fairly understood from congressional action, or is in accord with congressional policy, not only is § 1983 no bar, but the federal courts should be alert to further those policies.
We plainly have sufficient evidence of such congressional policy here. As noted above, in enacting the Tax Injunction Act, Congress sought to assure that the federal courts would remain open to suits for monetary relief in state tax cases “if *137the requisite elements of Federal jurisdiction existed.” H. R. Rep. No. 1503, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., 3 (1937).26 In 1937 the requirement of exhaustion of state administrative remedies was certainly a mandatory precondition to suit, and in that sense a “jurisdictional prerequisite.” Nevertheless, we need not reach the conclusion that Congress intended by enactment of the Tax Injunction Act to freeze the then-operative jurisdictional practice of the federal courts in order to recognize that the administrative-exhaustion requirement is entirely consonant with the principal purposes of the Act: to provide assurance that federal courts exercise at least the same restraint in dealing with questions of state tax administration as the courts of the State that levied the tax. Where administrative remedies are a precondition to suit for monetary relief in state court, absent some substantial consideration compelling a contrary result in a particular case, those remedies should be deemed a precondition to suit in federal court as well.27
*138V
Petitioners sought damages arising from what they alleged to be unconstitutional assessments in four tax years. In 1974 and 1975, they failed to pursue in any manner the administrative remedies provided by the State. In 1977 they appealed their assessment to the St. Louis County Board of Equalization and gained substantial relief. Although they claim here that the relief granted by the Board of Equalization failed to bring their assessment up to constitutional standards, they failed to appeal the Board’s ruling for that year to the State Tax Commission. An appeal of their 1978 assessment was pending before the State Tax Commission at the time they brought this action.
Because petitioners failed to exhaust their administrative remedies in each tax year for which they seek damages, their complaint was properly dismissed. To the extent today’s judgment affirms that dismissal, I concur.

 The court focused on the claims of the Cassillys, the individual petitioners, dismissing FAIR’S complaint because it is “obviously in the same position as the individual plaintiffs.” Petitioners do not challenge that determination in this Court, but rather concede that the “case turns” solely on the claims of the individuals. Reply Brief for Petitioners 4, n. 2; Brief for Petitioners 8.

 To recognize the nature of the principle does not, of course, detract from the fact that its manifestations can be clearly seen in the cases of this Court, and in the Acts of Congress, long before Younger v. Harris. Indeed, the historic treatment of state tax litigation in the cases of this Court, and in Congress, provides an excellent illustration of the settled scope of the comity principle as a source of both judicial and congressional doctrine. The Court’s failure today to acknowledge the substantive limits of the principle may in part be the product of the fact that the “principle of comity” is not at all tied to concrete language in any constitutional or statutory provision. See L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law § 3-41 (1978).

 The distinction between federal court jurisdiction and the exercise of equitable power did not escape Chief Justice Stone writing for the Court in Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. v. Huffman, 319 U. S. 293 (1943):
*120“This Court has recognized that the federal courts, in the exercise of the sound discretion which has traditionally guided courts of equity in granting or withholding the extraordinary relief which they may afford, will not ordinarily restrain state officers from collecting state taxes where state law affords an adequate remedy to the taxpayer. This withholding of extraordinary relief by courts having the authority to give it is not a denial of the jurisdiction which Congress has conferred on the federal courts .... On the contrary, it is but a recognition that the jurisdiction conferred on the federal courts embraces suits in equity as well as law, and that a federal court of equity, which may in an appropriate case refuse to give its special protection to private rights when the exercise of its jurisdiction would be prejudicial to the public interest, should stay its hand in the public interest when it reasonably appears that private interests will not suffer.
“It is in the public interest that federal courts of equity should exercise their discretionary power to grant or withhold relief so as to avoid needless obstruction of the domestic policy of the states.” Id., at 297-298 (citations omitted; emphasis added).

 “Abstention” is often cited as an application of the comity principle. See, e. g., Wells, The Role of Comity in the Law of Federal Courts, 60 N. C. L. Rev. 59, 63-68 (1981). Not surprisingly then, we have applied the abstention doctrine only in equity actions. See Railroad Comm’n v. Pullman Co., 312 U. S. 496, 500 (1941) (“The resources of equity are equal to an adjustment that will avoid the waste of a tentative decision as well as the friction of a premature constitutional adjudication”); Burford v. Sun Oil Co., 319 U. S. 315, 318 (1943) (“as a matter of sound equitable discretion”).
In Pullman, the Court described the equitable origins of the rule:
“An appeal to the chancellor... is an appeal to the ‘exercise of the sound discretion which guides the determination of courts of equity’. . . . The history of equity jurisdiction is the history of regard for public consequences in employing the extraordinary remedy of the injunction. . . . Few public interests have a higher claim upon the discretion of a federal *121chancellor than the avoidance of needless friction with state policies . . . 312 U. S., at 500.
But even assuming “abstention” might have some application in actions at law, cf. Clay v. Sun Insurance Office Ltd., 363 U. S. 207 (1960) (certifying a question to the state court in a legal action), it is quite clear that the doctrine would not extend so far as wholly to deprive the litigant of his federal forum. The abstention doctrines are founded on the recognition that state, not federal, courts are the final expositors of state law, and thus reflect a justifiable diffidence on the part of federal courts confronted with novel state law questions.
Abstention is thus narrowly drawn to meet the particularized need it serves. The federal court remains open to the litigant to present his federal claim should the action for which he is remitted to state court fail to afford relief. England v. Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners, 375 U. S. 411 (1964). See also Louisiana Power & Light Co. v. City of Thibodaux, 360 U. S. 25, 29 (1959) (“This course does not constitute abnegation of judicial duty. On the contrary, it is a wise and productive discharge of it. There is only postponement of decision for its best fruition”).
Principles of comity are also reflected in federal habeas practice. While current habeas jurisdiction is wholly a statutory matter, 28 U. S. C. § 2254, comity surely played a part in the development of the exhaustion requirement. See Ex parte Royall, 117 U. S. 241 (1886). But the judicial creation of that requirement reflected no usurpation of judicial power. Issuance of the Great Writ was historically regarded as a matter of equitable discretion. See Fay v. Noia, 372 U. S. 391, 438 (1963).

 This is not to suggest that there is no occasion to apply principles of comity in actions at law. The doctrine of exhaustion of administrative remedies, while based primarily on concerns of judicial administration, see Myers v. Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp., 303 U. S. 41, 50-51 (1938), and which reflects principles of avoidance of unnecessary litigation, deference to administrative expertise, and “notions of administrative autonomy,” see McKart v. United States, 395 U. S. 185, 194-195 (1969), is surely broad enough to encompass comity concerns as well. Cf. First National Bank of Greeley v. Board of Commissioners of Weld County, 264 U. S. 450 (1924). But the role of comity must narrow with the scope of judicial discretion, and, in regard to suits seeking monetary relief, that discretion is limited.

 The Court explained the equitable foundations of anticipatory relief:
“The jurisdiction of the district court in the present suit, praying an adjudication of rights in anticipation of their threatened infringement, is analogous to the equity jurisdiction .... Called upon to adjudicate what is essentially an equitable cause of action, the district court was as free as in *123any other suit in equity to grant or withhold the relief prayed, upon equitable grounds.” 319 U. S., at 300.

 A similar desire to ensure that state and local governments not be deprived of the use of tax proceeds until the lawfulness of the levy was finally determined, was largely responsible for enactment of the Tax Injunction Act. See infra, at 129-130, and n. 16.

 The Court suggests that if the District Court determines that the assessments in question here were unlawful, the state officials “would promptly cease the conduct found to have infringed petitioners’ constitutional rights,” and thus the determination of unlawfulness would operate to “suspend” collection of state taxes. Ante, at 115. But I would never have thought this result something to be avoided. The Great Lakes rule seeks to avoid withholding tax funds from local authorities until the tax is determined to be unlawful, not afterwards.

 The Civil Rights Act that became § 1981 was passed by Congress in 1868. The reference to “taxes” was added in 1870. See County of San Mateo v. Southern Pacific R. Co., 13 F. 145, 151 (CC Cal. 1882) (Justice Field). At least one state tax case seeking a damages remedy has involved a claim under § 1981. Garrett v. Bamford, 538 F. 2d 63 (CA3 1976).

 Actions challenging the constitutionality of state taxation have also been held to fall within the general federal question jurisdiction, 28 U. S. C. § 1331. See, e. g., Raymond v. Chicago Union Traction Co., 207 U. S. 20, 35 (1907) (“The claim that the action of the state board of equal*124ization in making the assessment under consideration was the action of the State, and if carried out would violate the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, by taking property of the appellee without due process of law, and by failing to give it the equal protection of the laws, constitutes a Federal question beyond all controversy”); County of San Mateo v. Southern Pacific R. Co., supra; Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Bosworth, 230 F. 191 (ED Ky. 1915).

 The jurisdictional grant reflects a congressional policy pronouncement on the role of the federal courts in our federal system. The Civil Rights Acts, passed between 1866 and 1875, and made federally cognizable by 28 U. S. C. § 1343(3), were followed by the Act of Mar. 3,1875, which granted the federal courts jurisdiction over all federal statutory and constitutional questions where the requisite amount in controversy was met. § 1, 18 Stat. 470. It hardly disparages the current standing of the state courts as qualified adjudicators of federal rights exercising jurisdiction concurrent with that of the federal courts, to note that at the time of the enactment there was a more than modest distrust of the state courts as protectors of federal rights, see Mitchum v. Foster, 407 U. S. 225, 238-242 (1972), and that “[b]y that statute ‘. . . Congress gave the federal courts the vast range of power which had lain dormant in the Constitution since 1789. These courts ceased to be restricted tribunals of fair dealing between citizens of different states and became the primary and powerful reliances for vindicating every right given by the Constitution, the laws, and treaties of the United States.’” Zwickler v. Koota, 389 U. S. 241, 247 (1967) (emphasis in the opinion), quoting F. Frankfurter & J. Landis, The Business of the Supreme Court: A Study in the Federal Judicial System 65 (1927).

 We stated in Zwickler:
“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. Plainly, escape from that duty is not permissible merely because state courts also have the solemn responsibility, equally with the federal courts, ‘. . . to guard, enforce, and protect every right granted or secured by the Constitution of the United States . . . .’ ‘We yet like to believe that wherever the Federal courts sit, human rights under the Federal Constitution are always a proper subject *125for adjudication, and that we have not the right to decline the exercise of that jurisdiction simply because the rights asserted may be adjudicated in some other forum.’” 389 U. S., at 248 (citations omitted).

 I might also question whether these terms are totally devoid of specialized legal meaning, for they surely seem to evoke association with the language of equitable actions. See, e. g., Dows v. Chicago, 11 Wall. 108, 110 (1871) (“No court of equity will. . . allow its injunction to issue to restrain their action . . .”) (emphasis added); Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. v. Huffman, 319 U. S., at 299 (“suspend collection of the state taxes until the litigation is ended”).

 To be cognizable in a court of equity, it was understood that “the case must be brought within some of the recognized foundations of equitable jurisdiction, and that mere errors or excess in valuation, or hardship or injustice of the law, or any grievance which can be remedied by a suit at law, either before or after payment of taxes, will not justify a court of equity to interpose by injunction to stay collection of a tax.” State Railroad Tax Cases, 92 U. S. 575, 614 (1876). The limitations of federal equity practice in 1876 intensified the need for restraint. Because the equity court was limited to enjoining the collection of the tax as a whole, the effect of injunc-tive relief was to allow the complainant to escape payment of all taxes due, even though the portion that reflected the lawful assessment should, in justice, have been paid. Id., at 614-615.

 England v. Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners, 375 U. S., at 431 (Douglas, J., concurring).
Two features of federal equity practice explained this willingness to grant equitable relief. The first was the construction that this Court placed on the equitable maxim that equity jurisdiction does not lie where there exists an adequate legal remedy. The Court had held that the “adequate legal remedy” must be one cognizable in federal court. City Bank Co. v. Schnader, 291 U. S. 24, 29 (1934). Where the limitations on federal jurisdiction would preclude adjudication of the suit for monetary relief, either because of the mandate of the Eleventh Amendment, or otherwise, the barrier to federal injunctive intervention was thus removed. The States had for the most part denied their courts the power to grant anticipatory relief against the collection of taxes. See Culp, The Powers of a Court of Equity in State Tax Litigation, 38 Mich. L. Rev. 610, 618-631 (1940). It was this imbalance in the powers of the state and federal judicial systems that was “particularly remedied” by passage of the Tax Injunction Act. H. R. Rep. No. 1503, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., 3 (1937).
The second feature was that the federal courts, in construing strictly the requirement that the remedy available at law be “plain, adequate and complete,” see supra, at 127, had frequently concluded that the procedures provided by the State were not adequate. See Note, Federal Court Interference with the Assessment and Collection of State Taxes, 59 Harv. L. Rev. 780, 782-783 (1946). The Tax Injunction Act set forth a more deferential standard by which to evaluate the adequacy of the state remedy. See Rosewell v. LaSalle National Bank, 450 U. S. 503 (1981). Thus, in this respect too, the Tax Injunction Act limited the equitable range of the district court and brought federal court practice more closely into line with that of state courts — which assuredly were required to act within the bounds of state law and procedure without regard to whether the federal courts considered that law and procedure “plain, adequate and complete.”

 The Report further noted:
“It is the common practice for statutes of the various States to forbid actions in State courts to enjoin the collection of State and county taxes unless the tax law is invalid or the property is exempt from taxation, and these statutes generally provide that taxpayers may contest their taxes only in refund actions after payment under protest. This type of State legislation makes it possible for the States and their various agencies to survive while long-drawp-out tax litigation is in progress. If those to whom the Federal courts are open may secure injunctive relief against the collection of taxes, the highly unfair picture is presented of the citizen of the State being required to pay first and then litigate, while those privileged to sue in the Federal courts need only pay what they choose and withhold the balance during the period of litigation.
“The existing practice of the Federal courts in entertaining tax-injunction suits against State officers makes it possible for foreign corpora*131tions doing business in such States to withhold from them and their governmental subdivisions, taxes in such vast amounts and for such long periods of time as to seriously disrupt State and county finances. The pressing needs of these States for this tax money is so great that in many instances they have been compelled to compromise these suits, as a result of which substantial portions of the tax have been lost to the States without a judicial examination into the real merits of the controversy.” S. Rep. No. 1035, at 1-2.

 The brief quotes from many of the eases discussed in Part III-B, supra, supporting the view that the federal forum would continue to be available.
To be sure, the House and Senate Reports focus on actions brought under diversity jurisdiction. But this emphasis merely reflects the fact that Congress was particularly concerned about the advantage conferred on out-of-state corporations by virtue of diversity jurisdiction. Just as it was unlikely that Congress, by enacting 28 U. S. C. § 1341, sought to limit federal equity power only in diversity cases, see Rosewell v. LaSalle National Bank, 450 U. S., at 522-523, n. 29, it is implausible that Congress wished to ensure the continued availability of diversity jurisdiction in actions at law, while implicity barring damages actions arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States.

 And in the cases that succeeded the Act. See supra, at 122-123.

 See Apartments Bldg. Co. v. Smiley, 32 F. 2d 142, 143 (CA8 1929). A like rule applied in equity actions. See Gorham Mfg. Co. v. State Tax Comm’n, 266 U. S. 265, 269-270 (1924); First National Bank of Greenville v. Gildart, 64 F. 2d 873, 874-875 (CA5 1933); McDougal v. Mudge, 233 F. 235, 237 (CA8 1916).

 Revised Statutes § 5219 allowed state and local taxation of the shares of a national bank “subject only to the two restrictions, that the taxation shall not be at a greater rate than is assessed upon other moneyed capital in the hands of individual citizens of such State, and that the shares of any national banking association owned by non-residents of any State shall be taxed in the city or town where the bank is located, and not elsewhere. Nothing herein shall be construed to exempt the real property of associations from either State, county, or municipal taxes, to the same extent, according to its value, as other real property is taxed.” .

 Plaintiff in error charged that the “banks of Weld county were assessed and compelled to pay upon a valuation grossly in excess of that put upon other property in the same county and likewise in excess of that put upon other banks in other counties of the State.” 264 U. S., at 452-453.

 The exhaustion rule stated in Weld County, reflecting the established practice in state tax matters, was limited to exhaustion of administrative, but not judicial, remedies. See id., at 456; Stason, Judicial Review of Tax Errors — Effect of Failure to Resort to Administrative Remedies, 28 Mich. L. Rev. 637, 659, and n. 47 (1930) (“In no case, so far as the present examination of authorities has disclosed, has it been held that the taxpayer must resort to available modes of direct attack by judicial proceedings, before proceeding with collateral attack, except in injunction cases in which an injunction is refused because of the adequacy of the legal remedy”).

 In Myers v. Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp., 303 U. S. 41 (1938), which set forth the exhaustion requirement with respect to federal administrative remedies, Justice Brandéis noted that the exhaustion rule had frequently been applied in equity cases. Id., at 51, n. 9. “But,” he added, “because the rule is one of judicial administration — not merely a rule governing the exercise of discretion — it is applicable to proceedings at law as well as suits in equity,” ibid., citing Weld County.

 Petitioners seek to distinguish this case from Weld County, arguing that in Weld County the action was brought against the county directly, and was thus in effect a suit for a refund for which exhaustion might be appropriate, while this action has been brought pursuant to 42 U. S. C. § 1983 against officials of the county, seeking damages. The distinction is unpersuasive. Any relief obtained by petitioners through the administrative process would, of course, reduce the potential damages liability of these defendants. Moreover, a city or county might itself be susceptible to suit under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 where (as is apparently the allegation here) it is alleged that the unlawful assessments are an artifact of official policy. Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U. S. 658 (1978). Petitioners should not be able to circumvent the exhaustion requirement by designedly not bringing suit against the single potential defendant to have actually benefited from the collection of the allegedly unlawful tax.
Finally, petitioners’ argument is particularly inapt in this case. Many of the officials named as defendants have no small involvement in the administrative process. It surely seems appropriate that before being held accountable in court those officials have the opportunity fully to consider petitioners' claims within the administrative forum that provides the only basis for their involvement in this matter. See McKart v. United States, 395 U. S., at 195.
Of course, it is unnecessary to decide whether the allegations in the complaint at issue here do state a claim under 42 U. S. C. § 1983.

 I dissented in Preiser because I saw insufficient justification there to warrant displacement of the § 1983 remedy in favor of a habeas corpus procedure involving exhaustion of state judicial remedies.

 See also H. R. Rep. No. 1503, at 4: “ ‘[T]he aggrieved party is left to ... his suit at law in the Federal courts if the essential elements of Federal jurisdiction are present’ ” (quoting Matthews v. Rodgers, 284 U. S. 521, 525-526 (1932)).

 In Perez v. Ledesma, 401 U. S. 82, 128, n. 17 (1971) (concurring in part and dissenting in part), I noted the policies that have motivated both judicial and congressional restraint in this field:
“The special reasons justifying the policy of federal noninterference with state tax collection are obvious. The procedures for mass assessment and collection of state taxes and for administration and adjudication of taxpayers’ disputes with tax officials are generally complex and necessarily designed to operate according to established rules. State tax agencies are organized to discharge their responsibilities in accordance with the state procedures. If federal declaratory relief were available to test state tax assessments, state tax administration might be thrown into disarray, and taxpayers might escape the ordinary procedural requirements imposed by state law. During the pendency of the federal suit the collection of revenue under the challenged law might be obstructed, with consequent damage to the State’s budget, and perhaps a shift to the State of the risk of taxpayer insolvency. Moreover, federal constitutional issues are likely to *138turn on questions of state tax law, which, like issues of state regulatory law, are more properly heard in the state courts.”
Thus I recognize, as does the Court, those considerations that have prompted federal restraint in matters of state taxation. My quarrel with the Court is that in my view those concerns can be, and historically have been, addressed by means far less drastic than the judicial abnegation of federal court jurisdiction. The administrative-exhaustion requirement squarely meets those concerns. Indeed, the problems perhaps least well met by the administrative-exhaustion requirement are adequately served by other established mechanisms of federal restraint: the possibility of an unwarranted financial burden on the taxing authority during the pendency of litigation is directly addressed by the Tax Injunction Act itself and our restriction on the use of the declaratory judgment procedure; the primacy of the state courts as expositors of state tax law prevails through application of principles of abstention as enunciated in Railroad Comm’n v. Pullman Co., 312 U. S. 496 (1941).