Nine months after being allegedly beaten by Milwaukee police
officers who arrested him on a disorderly conduct charge that was
later dropped, petitioner filed this state court action against the
city and certain of the officers under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging
that the beating and arrest were racially motivated, and violated
his rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the
Federal Constitution. The officers (respondents) moved to dismiss
the suit because of petitioner's failure to comply with Wisconsin's
notice of claim statute, which provides,
inter alia, that
before suit may be brought in state court against a state or local
governmental entity or officer, the plaintiff, within 120 days of
the alleged injury, must notify the defendant of the circumstances
and amount of the claim and the plaintiff's intent to hold the
named defendant liable; that the defendant then has 120 days to
grant or disallow the requested relief; and that the plaintiff must
bring suit within six months of receiving notice of disallowance.
The court denied the motion as to petitioner's § 1983 claim, and
the Wisconsin Court of Appeals affirmed. The Wisconsin Supreme
Court reversed, holding that, while Congress may establish the
procedural framework under which claims are heard in federal
courts, States retain the authority under the Constitution to
prescribe procedures that govern actions in their own tribunals,
including actions to vindicate congressionally created rights.
Held: Because the Wisconsin notice of claim statute
conflicts in both its purpose and effects with § 1983's remedial
objectives, and because its enforcement in state court actions will
frequently and predictably produce different outcomes in § 1983
litigation based solely on whether the claim is asserted in state
or federal court, it is preempted pursuant to the Supremacy Clause
when the § 1983 action is brought in a state court. Pp.
487 U. S.
138-153.
(a) Unlike the lack of statutes of limitations in the federal
civil rights laws -- which has led to borrowing state law
limitations periods for personal injury claims -- the absence of
any federal notice of claim provision is not a deficiency requiring
the importation of such a state law provision into the federal
civil rights scheme. Notice of claim rules are neither universally
familiar nor in any sense indispensable prerequisites to
litigation, and there is thus no reason to suppose that Congress
intended federal courts to apply such rules, which significantly
inhibit the ability to
Page 487 U. S. 132
bring federal actions. With regard to federal preemption (as
opposed to adoption) of state law, application of the notice
requirement burdens the exercise of the federal right by forcing
civil rights victims who seek redress in state courts to comply
with a requirement that is absent from civil rights litigation in
federal courts. Moreover, enforcement of such statutes in state
court § 1983 actions will frequently and predictably produce
different outcomes in federal civil rights litigation based solely
on whether the litigation takes place in state or federal court.
Pp.
487 U. S.
139-141.
(b) Wisconsin's notice of claim statute undermines § 1983's
unique remedy against state governmental bodies and their officials
by conditioning the right of recovery so as to minimize
governmental liability. The state statute also discriminates
against the federal right, since the State affords the victim of an
intentional tort two years to recognize the compensable nature of
his or her injury, while the civil rights victim is given only four
months to appreciate that he or she has been deprived of a federal
constitutional or statutory right. Moreover, the notice provision
operates, in part, as an exhaustion requirement by forcing
claimants to seek satisfaction in the first instance from the
governmental defendant. Congress never intended that those injured
by governmental wrongdoers could be required, as a condition of
recovery, to submit their claims to the government responsible for
their injuries. Pp.
487 U. S.
141-142.
(c) Wisconsin has chosen, through its legislative scheme
governing citizens' rights to sue the State's subdivisions, to
expose its subdivisions to large liability and defense costs, and
has made the concomitant decision to impose notice conditions that
assist the subdivisions in controlling those costs. The decision to
subject state subdivisions to liability for violations of federal
rights, however, was a choice that Congress made, and it is a
decision that the State has no authority to override. That state
courts will hear the entire § 1983 cause of action once a plaintiff
complies with the notice statute does not alter the fact that the
statute discriminates against the precise type of claim Congress
has created. Pp.
487 U. S.
142-145.
(d) While prompt investigation of claims inures to the benefit
of both claimants and local governments, notice statutes are
enacted primarily for the benefit of governmental defendants, and
are intended to afford such defendants an opportunity to prepare a
stronger case. Sound notions of public administration may support
the prompt notice requirement, but those policies necessarily clash
with the remedial purposes of the federal civil rights laws. Pp.
487 U. S.
145-146.
(e)
Patsy v. Board of Regents of Florida, 457 U.
S. 496, which held that plaintiffs need not exhaust
state administrative remedies before instituting § 1983 suits in
federal court, is not inapplicable to this state court suit on the
theory, asserted by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, that
Page 487 U. S. 133
States retain the authority to prescribe the rules and
procedures governing suits in their courts. That authority does not
extend so far as to permit States to place conditions on the
vindication of a federal right. Congress meant to provide
individuals immediate access to the federal courts, and did not
contemplate that those who sought to vindicate their federal rights
in state courts could be required to seek redress in the first
instance from the very state officials whose hostility to those
rights precipitated their injuries. There is no merit to
respondents' contention that the exhaustion requirement imposed by
the Wisconsin statute is essentially
de minimis, because
the statutory settlement period entails none of the additional
expense or undue delay typically associated with administrative
remedies, and does not alter a claimant's right to seek full
compensation through suit. Moreover, to the extent the exhaustion
requirement is designed to sift out "specious claims" from the
stream of complaints that can inundate local governments in the
absence of immunity, such a policy is inconsistent with the aims of
the federal legislation. Pp.
487 U. S.
146-150.
(f) Application of Wisconsin's statute to state court § 1983
actions cannot be approved as a matter of equitable federalism.
Just as federal courts are constitutionally obligated to apply
state law to state claims, the Supremacy Clause imposes on state
courts a constitutional duty to proceed in such manner that all the
substantial rights of the parties under controlling federal law are
protected. A state law that predictably alters the outcome of §
1983 claims depending solely on whether they are brought in state
or federal court within the State is obviously inconsistent with
the federal interest in intrastate uniformity. Pp.
487 U. S.
150-153.
139 Wis.2d 614,
408
N.W.2d 19, reversed and remanded.
BRENNAN, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which WHITE,
MARSHALL, BLACKMUN, STEVENS, SCALIA, and KENNEDY, JJ., joined.
WHITE, J., filed a concurring opinion,
post, p.
487 U. S. 153.
O'CONNOR, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which REHNQUIST, C.J.,
joined,
post, p.
487 U. S.
156.
Page 487 U. S. 134
JUSTICE BRENNAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
A Wisconsin statute provides that, before suit may be brought in
state court against a state or local governmental entity or
officer, the plaintiff must notify the governmental defendant of
the circumstances giving rise to the claim, the amount of the
claim, and his or her intent to hold the named defendant liable.
The statute further requires that, in order to afford the defendant
an opportunity to consider the requested relief, the claimant must
refrain from filing suit for 120 days after providing such notice.
Failure to comply with these requirements constitutes grounds for
dismissal of the action. In the present case, the Supreme Court of
Wisconsin held that this notice of claim statute applies to federal
civil rights actions brought in state court under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
Because we conclude that these requirements are preempted as
inconsistent with federal law, we reverse.
I
On July 4, 1981, Milwaukee police officers stopped petitioner
Bobby Felder for questioning while searching his neighborhood for
an armed suspect. The interrogation proved to be hostile, and
apparently loud, attracting the attention of petitioner's family
and neighbors, who succeeded in convincing the police that
petitioner was not the man they sought. According to police
reports, the officers then directed petitioner to return home, but
he continued to argue,
Page 487 U. S. 135
and allegedly pushed one of them, thereby precipitating his
arrest for disorderly conduct. Petitioner alleges that, in the
course of this arrest, the officers beat him about the head and
face with batons, dragged him across the ground, and threw him,
partially unconscious, into the back of a paddy wagon, face first,
all in full view of his family and neighbors. Shortly afterwards,
in response to complaints from these neighbors, a local city
alderman and members of the Milwaukee Police Department arrived on
the scene and began interviewing witnesses to the arrest. Three
days later, the local alderman wrote directly to the chief of
police, requesting a full investigation into the incident.
Petitioner, who is black, alleges that various members of the
Police Department responded to this request by conspiring to cover
up the misconduct of the arresting officers, all of whom are white.
The Department took no disciplinary action against any of the
officers, and the city attorney subsequently dropped the disorderly
conduct charge against petitioner.
Nine months after the incident, petitioner filed this action in
the Milwaukee County Circuit Court against the city of Milwaukee
and certain of its police officers, alleging that the beating and
arrest were unprovoked and racially motivated, and violated his
rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United
States Constitution. He sought redress under 42 U.S.C. § 1983,
[
Footnote 1] as well as
attorney's fees pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988. The officers moved to
dismiss
Page 487 U. S. 136
the suit based on petitioner's failure to comply with the
State's notice of claim statute. That statute provides that no
action may be brought or maintained against any state governmental
subdivision, agency, or officer unless the claimant either provides
written notice of the claim within 120 days of the alleged injury,
or demonstrates that the relevant subdivision, agency, or officer
had actual notice of the claim and was not prejudiced by the lack
of written notice. Wis.Stat. § 893.80(1)(a) (1983 and Supp.1987).
[
Footnote 2] The statute
further provides that the party seeking redress must also
Page 487 U. S. 137
submit an itemized statement of the relief sought to the
governmental subdivision or agency, which then has 120 days to
grant or disallow the requested relief. § 893.80(1)(b). Finally,
claimants must bring suit within six months of receiving notice
that their claim has been disallowed.
Ibid.
The trial court granted the officers' motion as to all state law
causes of action, but denied the motion as to petitioner's
remaining federal claims. The Court of Appeals affirmed on the
basis of its earlier decisions holding the notice of claim statute
inapplicable to federal civil rights actions brought in state
court. The Wisconsin Supreme Court, however, reversed. 139 Wis.2d
614,
408 N.W.2d
19 (1987). Passing on the question for the first time, the
court reasoned that, while Congress may establish the procedural
framework under which claims are heard in federal courts, States
retain the authority under the Constitution to prescribe the rules
and procedures that govern actions in their own tribunals.
Accordingly, a party who chooses to vindicate a congressionally
created right in state court must abide by the State's procedures.
Requiring compliance with the notice of claim statute, the court
determined, does not frustrate the remedial and deterrent purposes
of the federal civil rights laws, because the statute neither
limits the amount a plaintiff may recover for violation of his or
her civil rights nor precludes the possibility of such recovery
altogether. Rather, the court reasoned, the notice requirement
advances the State's legitimate interests in protecting against
stale or fraudulent claims, facilitating prompt settlement of valid
claims, and identifying and correcting inappropriate conduct by
governmental employees and officials. Turning to the question of
compliance in this case, the court concluded that the complaints
lodged with the local police by petitioner's neighbors, and the
letter submitted to the police chief by the local alderman, failed
to satisfy the statute's actual notice standard because these
communications neither recited the facts giving
Page 487 U. S. 138
rise to the alleged injuries nor revealed petitioner's intent to
hold the defendants responsible for those injuries.
We granted certiorari, 484 U.S. 942 (1987), and now reverse.
II
No one disputes the general and unassailable proposition relied
upon by the Wisconsin Supreme Court below that States may establish
the rules of procedure governing litigation in their own courts. By
the same token, however, where state courts entertain a federally
created cause of action, the "federal right cannot be defeated by
the forms of local practice."
Brown v. Western R. Co. of
Alabama, 338 U. S. 294,
338 U. S. 296
(1949). The question before us today, therefore, is essentially one
of preemption: is the application of the State's notice of claim
provision to § 1983 actions brought in state courts consistent with
the goals of the federal civil rights laws, or does the enforcement
of such a requirement instead "
stan[d] as an obstacle to the
accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of
Congress'"? Perez v. Campbell, 402 U.
S. 637, 402 U. S. 649
(1971) (quoting Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U. S.
52, 312 U. S. 67
(1941)). Under the Supremacy Clause of the Federal Constitution,
"[t]he relative importance to the State of its own law is not
material when there is a conflict with a valid federal law," for
"any state law, however clearly within a State's acknowledged
power, which interferes with or is contrary to federal law, must
yield." Free v. Bland, 369 U. S. 663,
369 U. S. 666
(1962). Because the notice of claim statute at issue here conflicts
in both its purpose and effects with the remedial objectives of §
1983, and because its enforcement in such actions will frequently
and predictably produce different outcomes in § 1983 litigation
based solely on whether the claim is asserted in state or federal
court, we conclude that the state law is preempted when the § 1983
action is brought in a state court.
Page 487 U. S. 139
A
Section 1983 creates a species of liability in favor of persons
deprived of their federal civil rights by those wielding state
authority. As we have repeatedly emphasized,
"the central objective of the Reconstruction-Era civil rights
statutes . . . is to ensure that individuals whose federal
constitutional or statutory rights are abridged may recover damages
or secure injunctive relief."
Burnett v. Grattan, 468 U. S. 42,
468 U. S. 55
(1984). Thus, § 1983 provides "a uniquely federal remedy against
incursions . . . upon rights secured by the Constitution and laws
of the Nation,"
Mitchum v. Foster, 407 U.
S. 225,
407 U. S. 239
(1972), and is to be accorded "a sweep as broad as its language."
United States v. Price, 383 U. S. 787,
383 U. S. 801
(1966).
Any assessment of the applicability of a state law to federal
civil rights litigation, therefore, must be made in light of the
purpose and nature of the federal right. This is so whether the
question of state law applicability arises in § 1983 litigation
brought in state courts, which possess concurrent jurisdiction over
such actions,
see Patsy v. Board of Regents of Florida,
457 U. S. 496,
457 U. S.
506-507 (1982), or in federal court litigation, where,
because the federal civil rights laws fail to provide certain rules
of decision thought essential to the orderly adjudication of
rights, courts are occasionally called upon to borrow state law.
See 42 U.S.C. § 1988. Accordingly, we have held that a
state law that immunizes government conduct otherwise subject to
suit under § 1983 is preempted, even where the federal civil rights
litigation takes place in state court, because the application of
the state immunity law would thwart the congressional remedy,
see Martinez v. California, 444 U.
S. 277,
444 U. S. 284
(1980), which of course already provides certain immunities for
state officials.
See e.g., Davis v. Scherer, 468 U.
S. 183 (1984);
Stump v. Sparkman, 435 U.
S. 349 (1978);
Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.
S. 409 (1976). Similarly, in actions brought in federal
courts, we have disapproved the adoption of state statutes of
limitation
Page 487 U. S. 140
that provide only a truncated period of time within which to
file suit, because such statutes inadequately accommodate the
complexities of federal civil rights litigation, and are thus
inconsistent with Congress' compensatory aims.
Burnett,
supra, at
468 U. S. 50-55.
And we have directed the lower federal courts in § 1983 cases to
borrow the state law limitations period for personal injury claims
because it is
"most unlikely that the period of limitations applicable to such
claims ever was, or ever would be, fixed [by the forum State] in a
way that would discriminate against federal claims, or be
inconsistent with federal law in any respect."
Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U. S. 261,
471 U. S. 279
(1985).
Although we have never passed on the question, the lower federal
courts have all, with but one exception, concluded that notice of
claim provisions are inapplicable to § 1983 actions brought in
federal court.
See Brown v. United States, 239
U.S.App.D.C. 345, 356, n. 6, 742 F.2d 1498, 1509, n. 6 (1984) (en
banc) (collecting cases);
but see Cardo v. Lakeland Central
School Dist., 592 F.
Supp. 765, 772-773 (SDNY 1984). These courts have reasoned
that, unlike the lack of statutes of limitations in the federal
civil rights laws, the absence of any notice of claim provision is
not a deficiency requiring the importation of such statutes into
the federal civil rights scheme. Because statutes of limitation are
among the universally familiar aspects of litigation considered
indispensable to any scheme of justice, it is entirely reasonable
to assume that Congress did not intend to create a right
enforceable in perpetuity. Notice of claim provisions, by contrast,
are neither universally familiar nor in any sense indispensable
prerequisites to litigation, and there is thus no reason to suppose
that Congress intended federal courts to apply such rules, which
"significantly inhibit the ability to bring federal actions." 239
U.S.App.D.C. at 354, 742 F.2d at 1507.
While we fully agree with this near-unanimous consensus of the
federal courts, that judgment is not dispositive here, where the
question is not one of adoption, but of preemption.
Page 487 U. S. 141
Nevertheless, this determination that notice of claim statutes
are inapplicable to federal court § 1983 litigation informs our
analysis in two crucial respects. First, it demonstrates that the
application of the notice requirement burdens the exercise of the
federal right by forcing civil rights victims who seek redress in
state courts to comply with a requirement that is entirely absent
from civil rights litigation in federal courts. This burden, as we
explain below, is inconsistent in both design and effect with the
compensatory aims of the federal civil rights laws. Second, it
reveals that the enforcement of such statutes in § 1983 actions
brought in state court will frequently and predictably produce
different outcomes in federal civil rights litigation based solely
on whether that litigation takes place in state or federal court.
States may not apply such an outcome-determinative law when
entertaining substantive federal rights in their courts.
B
As we noted above, the central purpose of the Reconstruction-Era
laws is to provide compensatory relief to those deprived of their
federal rights by state actors. Section 1983 accomplishes this goal
by creating a form of liability that, by its very nature, runs only
against a specific class of defendants: government bodies and their
officials. Wisconsin's notice of claim statute undermines this
"uniquely federal remedy,"
Mitchum v. Foster, 407 U.S. at
407 U. S. 239,
in several interrelated ways. First, it conditions the right of
recovery that Congress has authorized, and does so for a reason
manifestly inconsistent with the purposes of the federal statute:
to minimize governmental liability. Nor is this condition a neutral
and uniformly applicable rule of procedure; rather, it is a
substantive burden imposed only upon those who seek redress for
injuries resulting from the use or misuse of governmental
authority. Second, the notice provision discriminates against the
federal right. While the State affords the victim of an intentional
tort two years to recognize the compensable
Page 487 U. S. 142
nature of his or her injury, the civil rights victim is given
only four months to appreciate that he or she has been deprived of
a federal constitutional or statutory right. Finally, the notice
provision operates, in part, as an exhaustion requirement, in that
it forces claimants to seek satisfaction in the first instance from
the governmental defendant. We think it plain that Congress never
intended that those injured by governmental wrongdoers could be
required, as a condition of recovery, to submit their claims to the
government responsible for their injuries.
(1)
Wisconsin's notice of claim statute is part of a broader
legislative scheme governing the rights of citizens to sue the
State's subdivisions. The statute, both in its earliest and current
forms, provides a circumscribed waiver of local governmental
immunity that limits the amount recoverable in suits against local
governments and imposes the notice requirements at issue here.
Although the Wisconsin Supreme Court has held that the statutory
limits on recovery are preempted in federal civil rights actions,
Thompson v. Village of Hales Corners, 115 Wis.2d 289,
340 N.W.2d
704 (1983), and thus recognizes that partial immunities
inconsistent with § 1983 must yield to the federal right, it
concluded in the present case that the notice and exhaustion
conditions attached to the waiver of such immunities may
nevertheless be enforced in federal actions. The purposes of these
conditions, however, mirror those of the judicial immunity the
statute replaced. Such statutes "are enacted primarily for the
benefit of governmental defendants," Civil Actions, at 564, and
enable those defendants to "investigate early, prepare a stronger
case, and perhaps reach an early settlement."
Brown v. United
States, supra, at 353, 742 F.2d at 1506. Moreover, where the
defendant is unable to obtain a satisfactory settlement, the
Wisconsin statute forces claimants to bring suit within a
relatively short period after the local governing
Page 487 U. S. 143
body disallows the claim, in order to "assure prompt initiation
of litigation."
Gutter v. Seamandel, 103 Wis.2d 1, 22,
308 N.W.2d
403, 413 (1981). To be sure, the notice requirement serves the
additional purpose of notifying the proper public officials of
dangerous physical conditions or inappropriate and unlawful
governmental conduct, which allows for prompt corrective measures.
See Nielsen v. Town of Silver Cliff, 112 Wis.2d 574, 580,
334 N.W.2d
242, 245 (1983);
Binder v. Madison, 72 Wis.2d 613,
623,
241 N.W.2d
613, 618 (1976). This interest, however, is clearly not the
predominant objective of the statute. Indeed, the Wisconsin Supreme
Court has emphasized that the requisite notice must spell out both
the amount of damages the claimant seeks and his or her intent to
hold the governing body responsible for those damages precisely
because these requirements further the State's interest in
minimizing liability and the expenses associated with it.
See
Gutter, supra, at 10-11, 308 N.W.2d at 407 (statute's purpose
cannot be served unless the claim demands a specific sum of money);
Pattermann v. Whitewater, 32 Wis.2d 350, 355-359, 145
N.W.2d 705, 708-709 (1966) (distinguishing notice-of-injury from
notice of claim requirement).
In sum, as respondents explain, the State has chosen to expose
its subdivisions to large liability and defense costs, and, in
light of that choice, has made the concomitant decision to impose
conditions that "assis[t] municipalities in controlling those
costs." Brief for Respondents 12. The decision to subject state
subdivisions to liability for violations of federal rights,
however, was a choice that Congress, not the Wisconsin Legislature,
made, and it is a decision that the State has no authority to
override. Thus, however understandable or laudable the State's
interest in controlling liability expenses might otherwise be, it
is patently incompatible with the compensatory goals of the federal
legislation, as are the means the State has chosen to effectuate
it.
Page 487 U. S. 144
This incompatibility is revealed by the design of the notice of
claim statute itself, which operates as a condition precedent to
recovery in all actions brought in state court against governmental
entities or officers.
Sambs v. Nowak, 47 Wis.2d 158, 167,
177 N.W.2d
144, 149 (1970). "Congress," we have previously noted,
"surely did not intend to assign to state courts and
legislatures a conclusive role in the formative function of
defining and characterizing the essential elements of a federal
cause of action."
Wilson, 471 U.S. at
471 U. S. 269.
Yet that is precisely the consequence of what Wisconsin has done
here: although a party bringing suit against a local governmental
unit need not allege compliance with the notice statute as part of
his or her complaint,
Nielsen, supra, at 580, 334 N.W.2d
at 245, the statute confers on governmental defendants an
affirmative defense that obligates the plaintiff to demonstrate
compliance with the notice requirement before he or she may recover
at all, a showing altogether unnecessary when such an action is
brought in federal court. States, however, may no more condition
the federal right to recover for violations of civil rights than
bar that right altogether, particularly where those conditions grow
out of a waiver of immunity which, however necessary to the
assertion of state-created rights against local governments, is
entirely irrelevant insofar as the assertion of the federal right
is concerned,
see Martinez, 444 U.S. at
444 U. S. 284,
and where the purpose and effect of those conditions, when applied
in § 1983 actions, is to control the expense associated with the
very litigation Congress has authorized.
This burdening of a federal right, moreover, is not the natural
or permissible consequence of an otherwise neutral, uniformly
applicable state rule. Although it is true that the notice of claim
statute does not discriminate between state and federal causes of
action against local governments, the fact remains that the law's
protection extends only to governmental defendants, and thus
conditions the right to bring suit against the very persons and
entities Congress intended to
Page 487 U. S. 145
subject to liability. We therefore cannot accept the suggestion
that this requirement is simply part of
"the vast body of procedural rules, rooted in policies unrelated
to the definition of any particular substantive cause of action,
that forms no essential part of 'the cause of action' as applied to
any given plaintiff."
Brief for International City Management Association
et
al. as
Amici Curiae 22 (Brief for
Amici
Curiae). On the contrary, the notice of claim provision is
imposed only upon a specific class of plaintiffs -- those who sue
governmental defendants -- and, as we have seen, is firmly rooted
in policies very much related to, and to a large extent directly
contrary to, the substantive cause of action provided those
plaintiffs. This defendant-specific focus of the notice requirement
serves to distinguish it, rather starkly, from rules uniformly
applicable to all suits, such as rules governing service of process
or substitution of parties, which respondents cite as examples of
procedural requirements that penalize noncompliance through
dismissal. That state courts will hear the entire § 1983 cause of
action once a plaintiff complies with the notice of claim statute,
therefore, in no way alters the fact that the statute discriminates
against the precise type of claim Congress has created.
(2)
While respondents and
amici suggest that prompt
investigation of claims inures to the benefit of claimants and
local governments alike by providing both with an accurate factual
picture of the incident, such statutes "are enacted
primarily for the benefit of governmental defendants," and
are intended to afford such defendants an opportunity to prepare a
stronger case. Civil Actions, at 564 (emphasis added);
see also
Brown v. United States, 239 U.S.App.D.C. at 354, 742 F.2d at
1506. Sound notions of public administration may support the prompt
notice requirement, but those policies necessarily clash with the
remedial purposes of the federal civil rights laws. In
Wilson, we held that, for purposes
Page 487 U. S. 146
of choosing a limitations period for § 1983 actions, federal
courts must apply the state statute of limitations governing
personal injury claims, because it is highly unlikely that States
would ever fix the limitations period applicable to such claims in
a manner that would discriminate against the federal right. Here,
the notice of claim provision most emphatically does discriminate
in a manner detrimental to the federal right: only those persons
who wish to sue governmental defendants are required to provide
notice within such an abbreviated time period. Many civil rights
victims, however, will fail to appreciate the compensable nature of
their injuries within the 4-month window provided by the notice of
claim provision, [
Footnote 3]
and will thus be barred from asserting their federal right to
recovery in state court unless they can show that the defendant had
actual notice of the injury, the circumstances giving rise to it,
and the claimant's intent to hold the defendant responsible -- a
showing which, as the facts of this case vividly demonstrate, is
not easily made in Wisconsin.
(3)
Finally, the notice provision imposes an exhaustion requirement
on persons who choose to assert their federal right in state
courts, inasmuch as the § 1983 plaintiff must provide the requisite
notice of injury within 120 days of the civil rights violation,
then wait an additional 120 days while the
Page 487 U. S. 147
governmental defendant investigates the claim and attempts to
settle it. In
Patsy v. Board of Regents of Florida,
457 U. S. 496
(1982), we held that plaintiffs need not exhaust state
administrative remedies before instituting § 1983 suits in federal
court. The Wisconsin Supreme Court, however, deemed that decision
inapplicable to this state court suit on the theory that States
retain the authority to prescribe the rules and procedures
governing suits in their courts. 139 Wis.2d at 623, 408 N.W.2d at
23. As we have just explained, however, that authority does not
extend so far as to permit States to place conditions on the
vindication of a federal right. Moreover, as we noted in
Patsy, Congress enacted § 1983 in response to the
widespread deprivations of civil rights in the Southern States and
the inability or unwillingness of authorities in those States to
protect those rights or punish wrongdoers.
Patsy, supra,
at
457 U. S.
503-505;
see also Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.S. at
471 U. S.
276-277,
471 U. S. 279.
Although it is true that the principal remedy Congress chose to
provide injured persons was immediate access to
federal
courts,
Patsy, supra, at
457 U. S.
503-504, it did not leave the protection of such rights
exclusively in the hands of the federal judiciary, and instead
conferred concurrent jurisdiction on state courts as well. 457 U.S.
at
457 U. S.
506-507. Given the evil at which the federal civil
rights legislation was aimed, there is simply no reason to suppose
that Congress meant "to provide these individuals immediate access
to the federal courts notwithstanding any provision of state law to
the contrary,"
id. at
457 U. S. 504,
yet contemplated that those who sought to vindicate their federal
rights in state courts could be required to seek redress in the
first instance from the very state officials whose hostility to
those rights precipitated their injuries. [
Footnote 4]
Page 487 U. S. 148
Respondents nevertheless argue that any exhaustion requirement
imposed by the notice of claim statute is essentially
de
minimis because the statutory settlement period entails none
of the additional expense or undue delay typically associated with
administrative remedies, and indeed does not alter a claimant's
right to seek full compensation through suit. This argument fails
for two reasons. First, it ignores our prior assessment of "the
dominant characteristic of civil rights actions:
they belong in
court."
Burnett, 468 U.S. at
468 U. S. 50
(emphasis added). "These causes of action," we have explained,
"exist independent of any other legal or administrative relief
that may be available as a matter of federal or state law. They are
judicially enforceable
in the first instance."
Ibid. (emphasis added). The dominant characteristic of
a § 1983 action, of course, does not vary depending upon whether it
is litigated in state or federal court, and States therefore may
not adulterate or dilute the predominant feature of the federal
right by imposing mandatory settlement periods, no matter how
reasonable the administrative waiting period or the interests it is
designed to serve may appear.
Second, our decision in
Patsy rested not only on the
legislative history of § 1983 itself, but also on the facts that,
in the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act of 1980, 94
Stat. 353, 42 U.S.C. § 1997e, Congress established an exhaustion
requirement for a specific class of § 1983 actions -- those brought
by adult prisoners challenging the conditions of
Page 487 U. S. 149
their confinement -- and that, in so doing, Congress expressly
recognized that it was working a change in the law. Accordingly, we
refused to engraft an exhaustion requirement onto another type of §
1983 action where Congress had not provided for one, not only
because the judicial imposition of such a requirement would be
inconsistent with Congress' recognition that § 1983 plaintiffs
normally need not exhaust administrative remedies, 457 U.S. at
457 U. S.
508-512, but also because decisions concerning both the
desirability and the scope and design of any exhaustion requirement
turn on a host of policy considerations which "do not invariably
point in one direction," and which, for that very reason, are best
left to "Congress' superior institutional competence."
Id.
at
457 U. S. 513.
"[P]olicy considerations alone," we concluded, "cannot justify
judicially imposed exhaustion unless exhaustion is consistent with
congressional intent."
Ibid. While the exhaustion required
by Wisconsin's notice of claim statute does not involve lengthy or
expensive administrative proceedings, it forces injured persons to
seek satisfaction from those alleged to have caused the injury in
the first place. Such a dispute resolution system may have much to
commend it, but that is a judgment the current Congress must make,
for we think it plain that the Congress which enacted § 1983 over
100 years ago would have rejected as utterly inconsistent with the
remedial purposes of its broad statute the notion that a State
could require civil rights victims to seek compensation from
offending state officials before they could assert a federal action
in state court.
Finally, to the extent the exhaustion requirement is designed to
sift out "specious claims" from the stream of complaints that can
inundate local governments in the absence of immunity,
see
Nielsen, 112 Wis.2d at 580, 334 N.W.2d at 245, we have
rejected such a policy as inconsistent with the aims of the federal
legislation. In
Burnett, state officials urged the
adoption of a 6-month limitations period in a § 1983 action in
order that they might enjoy "some reasonable protection
Page 487 U. S. 150
from the seemingly endless stream of unfounded, and often stale,
lawsuits brought against them." 468 U.S. at
468 U. S. 54
(internal quotation marks omitted; citation omitted). Such a
contention, we noted,
"reflects in part a judgment that factors such as minimizing the
diversion of state officials' attention from their duties outweigh
the interest in providing [claimants] ready access to a forum to
resolve valid claims."
Id. at
468 U. S. 55. As
we explained there, and reaffirm today, "[t]hat policy is
manifestly inconsistent with the central objective of the
Reconstruction-Era civil rights statutes."
Ibid.
C
Respondents and their supporting
amici urge that we
approve the application of the notice of claim statute to § 1983
actions brought in state court as a matter of equitable federalism.
They note that
"'[t]he general rule, bottomed deeply in belief in the
importance of state control of state judicial procedure, is that
federal law takes the state courts as it finds them.'"
Brief for
Amici Curiae 8 (quoting Hart, The Relations
Between State and Federal Law, 54 Colum.L.Rev. 489, 508 (1954)).
Litigants who choose to bring their civil rights actions in state
courts presumably do so in order to obtain the benefit of certain
procedural advantages in those courts, or to draw their juries from
urban populations. Having availed themselves of these benefits,
civil rights litigants must comply as well with those state rules
they find less to their liking.
However equitable this bitter-with-the-sweet argument may appear
in the abstract, it has no place under our Supremacy Clause
analysis. Federal law takes state courts as it finds them only
insofar as those courts employ rules that do not "impose
unnecessary burdens upon rights of recovery authorized by federal
laws."
Brown v. Western R. Co. of Alabama, 338 U.S. at
338 U. S.
298-299;
see also Monessen Southwestern R. Co. v.
Morgan, 486 U. S. 330,
486 U. S. 336
(1988) (state rule designed to encourage settlement cannot limit
recovery
Page 487 U. S. 151
in federally created action). States may make the litigation of
federal rights as congenial as they see fit -- not as a
quid
pro quo for compliance with other, uncongenial rules, but
because such congeniality does not stand as an obstacle to the
accomplishment of Congress' goals. As we have seen, enforcement of
the notice of claim statute in § 1983 actions brought in state
court so interferes with and frustrates the substantive right
Congress created that, under the Supremacy Clause, it must yield to
the federal interest. This interference, however, is not the only
consequence of the statute that renders its application in § 1983
cases invalid. In a State that demands compliance with such a
statute before a § 1983 action may be brought or maintained in its
courts, the outcome of federal civil rights litigation will
frequently and predictably depend on whether it is brought in state
or federal court. Thus, the very notions of federalism upon which
respondents rely dictate that the State's outcome-determinative law
must give way when a party asserts a federal right in state
court.
Under
Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S.
64 (1938), when a federal court exercises diversity or
pendent jurisdiction over state law claims,
"the outcome of the litigation in the federal court should be
substantially the same, so far as legal rules determine the outcome
of a litigation, as it would be if tried in a State court."
Guaranty Trust Co. v. York, 326 U. S.
99,
326 U. S. 109
(1945). Accordingly, federal courts entertaining state law claims
against Wisconsin municipalities are obligated to apply the notice
of claim provision.
See Orthmann v. Apple River Campground,
Inc., 757 F.2d 909, 911 (CA7 1985). Just as federal courts are
constitutionally obligated to apply state law to state claims,
see Erie, supra, at
304 U. S. 78-79,
so too the Supremacy Clause imposes on state courts a
constitutional duty "to proceed in such manner that all the
substantial rights of the parties under controlling federal law
[are] protected."
Garrett v. Moore-McCormack Co.,
317 U. S. 239,
317 U. S. 245
(1942).
Page 487 U. S. 152
Civil rights victims often do not appreciate the constitutional
nature of their injuries,
see Burnett, 468 U.S. at
468 U. S. 50,
and thus will fail to file a notice of injury or claim within the
requisite time period,
see n 3,
supra, which in Wisconsin is a mere four
months. Unless such claimants can prove that the governmental
defendant had actual notice of the claim, which, as we have already
noted, is by no means a simple task in Wisconsin, and unless they
also file an itemized claim for damages, they must bring their §
1983 suits in federal court, or not at all. Wisconsin, however, may
not alter the outcome of federal claims it chooses to entertain in
its courts by demanding compliance with outcome-determinative rules
that are inapplicable when such claims are brought in federal
court, for
"'[w]hatever springes the State may set for those who are
endeavoring to assert rights that the State confers, the assertion
of federal rights, when plainly and reasonably made, is not to be
defeated under the name of local practice.'"
Brown v. Western R. Co. of Alabama, supra, at
338 U. S.
298-299 (quoting
Davis v. Wechsler,
263 U. S. 22,
263 U. S. 24
(1923)). The state notice of claim statute is more than a mere rule
of procedure: as we discussed above, the statute is a substantive
condition on the right to sue governmental officials and entities,
and the federal courts have therefore correctly recognized that the
notice statute governs the adjudication of state law claims in
diversity actions.
Orthmann, supra, at 911. In
Guaranty Trust, supra, we held that, in order to give
effect to a State's statute of limitations, a federal court could
not hear a state law action that a state court would deem
time-barred. Conversely, a state court may not decline to hear an
otherwise properly presented federal claim because that claim would
be barred under a state law requiring timely filing of notice.
State courts simply are not free to vindicate the substantive
interests underlying a state rule of decision at the expense of the
federal right.
Finally, in
Wilson, we characterized § 1983 suits as
claims for personal injuries because such an approach ensured
that
Page 487 U. S. 153
the same limitations period would govern all § 1983 actions
brought in any given State, and thus comported with Congress'
desire that the federal civil rights laws be given a uniform
application within each State. 471 U.S. at
471 U. S.
274-275. A law that predictably alters the outcome of §
1983 claims depending solely on whether they are brought in state
or federal court within the same State is obviously inconsistent
with this federal interest in intrastate uniformity.
III
In enacting § 1983, Congress entitled those deprived of their
civil rights to recover full compensation from the governmental
officials responsible for those deprivations. A state law that
conditions that right of recovery upon compliance with a rule
designed to minimize governmental liability, and that directs
injured persons to seek redress in the first instance from the very
targets of the federal legislation, is inconsistent in both purpose
and effect with the remedial objectives of the federal civil rights
law. Principles of federalism, as well as the Supremacy Clause,
dictate that such a state law must give way to vindication of the
federal right when that right is asserted in state court.
Accordingly, the judgment of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin is
reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not
inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
[
Footnote 1]
Title 42 U.S.C. § 1983 provides in relevant part:
"Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance,
regulation, custom, or usage, of any State . . . subjects, or
causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other
person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any
rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and
laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law,
suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress."
Petitioner also stated a claim based on 42 U.S.C. § 1985(2),
alleging a racially motivated conspiracy to interfere with his
access to the state courts. The parties and the state courts below
have treated these claims as identical for purposes of this suit,
and we do so here as well.
[
Footnote 2]
Section 893.80 provides in relevant part:
"(1) Except as provided in sub. (1m), no action may be brought
or maintained against any . . . governmental subdivision or agency
thereof nor against any officer, official, agent or employe of the
. . . subdivision or agency for acts done in their official
capacity or in the course of their agency or employment upon a
claim or cause of action unless:"
"(a) Within 120 days after the happening of the event giving
rise to the claim, written notice of the circumstances of the claim
signed by the party, agent or attorney is served on the . . .
governmental subdivision or agency and on the officer, official,
agent or employe. . . . Failure to give the requisite notice shall
not bar action on the claim if the . . . governmental subdivision
or agency had actual notice of the claim and the claimant shows to
the satisfaction of the court that the delay or failure to give the
requisite notice has not been prejudicial to the defendant . . .
subdivision or agency or to the defendant officer, official, agent
or employe; and"
"(b) A claim containing the address of the claimant and an
itemized statement of the relief sought is presented to the
appropriate clerk or person who performs the duties of a clerk or
secretary for the defendant . . . subdivision or agency and the
claim is disallowed. Failure of the appropriate body to disallow
within 120 days after presentation is a disallowance. Notice of
disallowance shall be served on the claimant by registered or
certified mail and the receipt therefor, signed by the claimant, or
the returned registered letter, shall be proof of service. No
action on a claim against any defendant . . . subdivision or agency
nor against any defendant officer, official, agent or employe may
be brought after 6 months from the date of service of the notice,
and the notice shall contain a statement to that effect."
Many States have adopted similar provisions.
See
generally Civil Actions Against State Government, Its
Divisions, Agencies, and Officers 559-569 (W. Winborne ed.1982)
(hereinafter Civil Actions).
[
Footnote 3]
The notice of claim statute does not require that claimants
recognize or specify the constitutional nature of their injuries
before they may initiate a § 1983 action. Certain constitutional
injuries, of course, such as the deprivation of liberty petitioner
suffered here, will have obvious and readily recognized common law
tort analogues,
e.g., battery. Although the State affords
the victim of such an intentional tort two years to appreciate that
he or she has suffered a compensable injury, Wis.Stat. § 893.57
(1983), it drastically reduces the time period when the tortfeasor
is a governmental officer or employee. Moreover, many other
deprivations, such as those involving denial of due process or of
equal protection, will be far more subtle. In the latter, and by no
means negligible, category of constitutional injuries, victims will
frequently fail to recognize within the 4-month statutory period
that they have been wronged at all.
[
Footnote 4]
Several
amici note that
"even the reform-minded Congress of the post-Civil War era did
not undertake to try to reform state court procedures in the field
of constitutional adjudication,"
Brief for
Amici Curiae 14, and conclude from this that
Congress "did not intend to interfere with procedural perquisites
of the States and their courts."
Id. at 16. This argument
misses its mark. The defects Congress perceived in state courts lay
in their jury factfinding processes, which of course were skewed by
local prejudices,
see Patsy v. Board of Regents of
Florida, 457 U. S. 496,
457 U. S. 506
(1982), and not in their otherwise neutral rules of procedure. The
fact that Congress saw no need to alter these neutral procedural
rules in no way suggests that all
future state court
procedures, including exhaustion requirements that were unheard of
at the time of § 1983's enactment and which apply only to injuries
inflicted by the very targets of that statute, would similarly be
consistent with the purposes and intent of the federal civil rights
laws.
JUSTICE WHITE, concurring.
It cannot be disputed that, if Congress had included a statute
of limitations in 42 U.S.C. § 1983, any state court that
entertained a § 1983 suit would have to apply that statute of
limitations. As the Court observed in an early case brought under
the Federal Employers' Liability Act of 1908, 35 Stat. 65, 45
U.S.C. § 51
et seq.,
"[i]f [a federal Act] be available in a state court to found a
right, and the record shows a lapse of
Page 487 U. S. 154
time after which the [A]ct says that no action shall be
maintained, the action must fail in the courts of a State as in
those of the United States."
Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Burnette, 239 U.
S. 199,
239 U. S. 201
(1915).
See also Engel v. Davenport, 271 U. S.
33,
271 U. S. 38-39
(1926);
McAllister v. Magnolia Petroleum Co., 357 U.
S. 221,
357 U. S. 228
(1958) (BRENNAN, J., concurring).
Similarly, where the Court has determined that a particular
state statute of limitations ought to be borrowed in order to
effectuate the congressional intent underlying a federal cause of
action that contains no statute of limitations of its own, any
state court that entertains the same federal cause of action must
apply the same state statute of limitations. We made such a
determination in
Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.
S. 261 (1985), which held that § 1983 suits must as a
matter of federal law [
Footnote
2/1] be governed by the state statute of limitations applicable
to tort suits for the recovery of damages for personal injuries. We
reasoned that the choice of a single statute of limitations within
each State was supported by "[t]he federal interests in uniformity,
certainty, and the minimization of unnecessary litigation,"
id. at
471 U. S. 275,
and that the choice of the personal injury statute of limitations
was supported by
"the nature of the § 1983 remedy and by the federal interest in
ensuring that the borrowed period of limitations not discriminate
against the federal civil rights remedy."
Id. at
471 U. S.
276.
It has since been assumed that
Wilson v. Garcia governs
the timeliness of § 1983 suits brought in state, as well as
federal, court.
See, e.g., Russell v.
Anchorage, 743 P.2d 372,
374-375, and n. 8 (Alaska 1987);
Ziccardi v. Pennsylvania Dept.
of General Services, 109 Pa.Commw. 628, 634-635,
Page 487 U. S. 155
527 A.2d 183, 185-186 (1987);
Walker v. Maruffi, 105
N.M. 763, 766-769,
737 P.2d
544, 547-550 (App.),
cert. denied, 105 N.M. 707, 736
P.2d 985 (1987) (table);
Maddocks v. Salt Lake City
Corp., 740 P.2d 1337,
1338-1339 (Utah 1987);
423 South Salina Street, Inc. v.
Syracuse, 68 N.Y.2d 474, 486-487; 503 N.E.2d 63, 69-70 (1986),
appeal dism'd, 481 U.S. 1008 (1987);
Fuchilla v.
Layman, 210 N.J.Super. 574, 582-583,
510 A.2d 281,
286 (1986),
aff'd, 109 N.J. 319,
537 A.2d
652 (1988);
Henderson v. State, 110 Idaho 308, 311,
715 P.2d 978, 981,
cert. denied, 477 U.S. 907 (1986);
Frisby v. Board of Education of Boyle
County, 707
S.W.2d 359, 361, (Ky.App.1986);
Vanaman v.
Palmer, 506 A.2d
190 (Del.Super.1986);
Hanson v. Madison Service Corp.,
125 Wis.2d 138, 141,
370 N.W.2d
586, 588 (App.1985).
The Wisconsin Supreme Court likewise assumed that
Wilson v.
Garcia governed which statute of limitations should apply to
petitioner's § 1983 claim. [
Footnote
2/2] The court then effectively truncated the applicable
limitations period, however, by dismissing petitioner's § 1983 suit
for failure to file a notice of claim within 120 days of the events
at issue, as required by Wis.Stat. § 893.80 (1983 and Supp.1987).
[
Footnote 2/3] Hence, petitioner
was allowed only about four months in which to investigate whether
the facts and the law would support any claim
Page 487 U. S. 156
against respondents (or retain a lawyer who would do so), and to
notify respondents of his claim, rather than the two or three years
that he would have been allowed under Wisconsin law had he sought
to assert a similar personal injury claim against a private party.
It is also unlikely that any other State would apply a 120-day
limitations period -- or, indeed, a limitations period of less than
one year -- to such a personal injury claim. [
Footnote 2/4] This reflects a generally accepted belief
among state policymakers that individuals who have suffered
injuries to their personal rights cannot fairly be expected to seek
redress within so short a period of time.
The application of the Wisconsin notice of claim statute to bar
petitioner's § 1983 suit -- which is, "in reality,
an action
for injury to personal rights'" 471 U.S. at 471 U. S. 265
(quoting 731 F.2d 640, 651 (CA10 1984) (opinion below)) -- thus
undermines the purposes of Wilson v. Garcia to promote
"[t]he federal interests in uniformity, certainty, and the
minimization of unnecessary litigation," 471 U.S. at 471 U. S. 275,
and assure that state procedural rules do not "discriminate against
the federal civil rights remedy." Id. at 471 U. S. 276.
I therefore agree that in view of the adverse impact of Wisconsin's
notice of claim statute on the federal policies articulated in
Wilson v. Garcia, the Supremacy Clause proscribes the
statute's application to § 1983 suits brought in Wisconsin state
courts.
[
Footnote 2/1]
In explaining that the characterization of § 1983 claims for
statute of limitations purposes is a question of federal law, we
observed that
"Congress surely did not intend to assign to state courts and
legislatures a conclusive role in the formative function of
defining and characterizing the essential elements of a federal
cause of action."
471 U.S. at
471 U. S.
269.
[
Footnote 2/2]
The court did not decide whether the § 1983 claim was to be
governed by the 2-year statute of limitations applicable to
intentional torts, Wis.Stat. § 893.57 (1983), or the 3-year statute
of limitations applicable generally to "injuries to the person," §
893.54(1).
[
Footnote 2/3]
To be sure, § 893.80 provides that failure to file a notice of
claim within the initial 120-day period
"shall not bar an action on the claim if the . . .
[governmental] subdivision or agency had actual notice of the claim
and the claimant shows to the satisfaction of the court that the
delay or failure to give the requisite notice has not been
prejudicial to the defendant."
The facts of this case demonstrate, however, that the "actual
notice" requirement is difficult to satisfy. For example, the
Wisconsin Supreme Court held that respondents had not received
"actual notice" of petitioner's claim even though the local
alderman had written directly to the chief of police requesting an
investigation of the incident only three days after its occurrence.
139 Wis.2d 614, 629-630,
408
N.W.2d 19, 25-26 (1987).
[
Footnote 2/4]
See Shapiro, Choosing the Appropriate State Statute of
Limitations for Section 1983 Claims After
Wilson v.
Garcia, 16 U.Balt.L.Rev. 242, 245-246 (1987) (listing
potentially applicable limitations periods of 26 States and
District of Columbia); Comment, 17 Memphis St.U.L.Rev. 127,
136-137, n. 74 (1986) (listing potentially applicable limitations
periods of 29 States, District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico).
JUSTICE O'CONNOR, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE joins,
dissenting.
"A state statute cannot be considered 'inconsistent' with
federal law merely because the statute causes the plaintiff to lose
the litigation."
Robertson v.
Wegmann, 436 U. S. 584,
Page 487 U. S. 157
436 U. S. 593
(1978). Disregarding this self-evident principle, the Court today
holds that Wisconsin's notice of claim statute is preempted by
federal law as to actions under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 filed in state
court. This holding is not supported by the statute whose
preemptive force it purports to invoke, or by our precedents.
Relying only on its own intuitions about "the goals of the federal
civil rights laws,"
ante at
487 U. S. 138,
the Court fashions a new theory of preemption that unnecessarily
and improperly suspends a perfectly valid state statute. This Court
has said that "unenacted approvals, beliefs, and desires are not
laws."
Puerto Rico Dept. of Consumer Affairs v. Isla Petroleum
Corp., 485 U. S. 495,
485 U. S. 501
(1988). Today's exercise departs not only from that unquestionable
proposition, but even from the much more obvious principle that
unexpressed approvals, beliefs, and desires are not laws.
Wisconsin's notice of claim statute, which imposes a limited
exhaustion of remedies requirement on those with claims against
municipal governments and their officials, serves at least two
important purposes apart from providing municipal defendants with a
special affirmative defense in litigation. First, the statute helps
ensure that public officials will receive prompt notice of wrongful
conditions or practices, and thus enables them to take prompt
corrective action. Second, it enables officials to investigate
claims in a timely fashion, thereby making it easier to ascertain
the facts accurately and to settle meritorious claims without
litigation. These important aspects of the Wisconsin statute bring
benefits to governments and claimants alike, and it should come as
no surprise that 37 other States have apparently adopted similar
notice of claim requirements. App. to Brief for International City
Management Association
et al. as
Amici Curiae
1a-2a. Without some compellingly clear indication that Congress has
forbidden the States to apply such statutes in their own courts,
there is no reason to conclude that they are "preempted" by federal
law. Allusions to such vague concepts
Page 487 U. S. 158
as "the compensatory aims of the federal civil rights laws,"
ante at
487 U. S. 141,
which are all that the Court actually relies on, do not provide an
adequate substitute for the statutory analysis that we customarily
require of ourselves before we reach out to find statutory
preemption of legitimate procedures used by the States in their own
courts.
Section 1983, it is worth recalling, creates no substantive law.
It merely provides one vehicle by which certain provisions of the
Constitution and other federal laws may be judicially enforced. Its
purpose, as we have repeatedly said, "
was to interpose the
federal courts between the States and the people, as
guardians of the people's federal rights. . . .'" Patsy v.
Board of Regents of Florida, 457 U. S. 496,
457 U. S. 503
(1982) (quoting Mitchum v. Foster, 407 U.
S. 225, 407 U. S. 242
(1972)) (emphasis added). For that reason, the original version of
§ 1983 provided that the federal courts would have exclusive
jurisdiction of actions arising under it. See Civil Rights
Act of 1871, ch. 22, § 1, 17 Stat. 13. This fact is conclusive
proof that the "Congress, which enacted § 1983 over 100 years ago,"
ante at 487 U. S. 149,
could not possibly have meant thereby to alter the operation of
state courts in any way or to "preempt" them from using procedural
statutes like the one at issue today.
State courts may now entertain § 1983 actions if a plaintiff
chooses a state court over the federal forum that is always
available as a matter of right.
See, e.g., Martinez v.
California, 444 U. S. 277,
444 U. S. 283,
and n. 7 (1980). Abandoning the rule of exclusive federal
jurisdiction over § 1983 actions, and thus restoring the tradition
of concurrent jurisdiction, however, "did not leave behind a
preemptive grin without a statutory cat."
Puerto Rico Dept. of
Consumer Affairs v. Isla Petroleum Corp., supra, at
485 U. S. 504.
Congress has never given the slightest indication that § 1983 was
meant to replace state procedural rules with those that apply in
the federal courts. The majority does not, because it cannot, cite
any evidence to the contrary.
Page 487 U. S. 159
In an effort to remedy this fatal defect in its position, the
majority engages in an extended discussion of
Patsy v. Board of
Regents of Florida, supra. See ante at
487 U. S.
147-149.
Patsy, however, actually undermines
the majority's conclusion. In that case, the Court concluded that
state exhaustion of remedies requirements were not to be applied in
§ 1983 actions brought in
federal court. The Court relied
on legislative history indicating that § 1983 was meant to provide
a federal forum with characteristics
different from those
in the state courts, 457 U.S. at
457 U. S.
502-507, and it came only to the limited and hesitant
conclusion that
"it seems fair to infer that the 1871 Congress did not intend
that an individual be compelled
in every case to exhaust
state administrative remedies before filing an action under [§
1983],"
id. at
457 U. S. 507
(emphasis added). Even this limited conclusion, the Court admitted,
was "somewhat precarious,"
ibid., which would have made no
sense if the Court had been able to rely on the more general
proposition -- from which the holding in
Patsy follows
a fortiori -- that it adopts today.
Patsy also relied on the Civil Rights of
Institutionalized Persons Act of 1980, § 7, 94 Stat. 352, 42 U.S.C.
§ 1997e, which ordinarily requires exhaustion of state remedies
before an adult prisoner can bring a § 1983 action in federal
court. The Court concluded that the
"legislative history of § 1997e demonstrates that Congress has
taken the approach of carving out specific exceptions to the
general rule that
federal courts cannot require exhaustion
under § 1983."
457 U.S. at
457 U. S. 512
(emphasis added). This finding lends further support to the
proposition that Congress has never concerned itself with the
application of exhaustion requirements in state courts, and § 1997e
conclusively shows that Congress does not believe that such
requirements are somehow inherently incompatible with the nature of
actions under § 1983.
For similar reasons,
Brown v. Western R. Co. of
Alabama, 338 U. S. 294
(1949), which is repeatedly quoted by the majority, does not
control the present case. In
Brown, which
Page 487 U. S. 160
arose under the Federal Employers' Liability Act (FELA), this
Court refused to accept a state court's interpretation of
allegations in a complaint asserting a federal statutory right.
Concluding that the state court's interpretation of the complaint
operated to "detract from
substantive rights' granted by
Congress in FELA cases," the Court
"simply h[e]ld that, under the facts alleged, it was error to
dismiss the complaint, and that [the claimant] should be allowed to
try his case."
Id. at
338 U. S. 296,
338 U. S. 299
(citations omitted).
See also Garrett v. Moore-McCormack
Co., 317 U. S. 239,
317 U. S. 249
(1942) ("Deeply rooted in admiralty as that right [to a certain
presumption] is, it was a part of the very substance of [the
plaintiff's] claim, and cannot be considered a mere incident of a
form of procedure") (citations omitted). In the case before us
today, by contrast, the statute at issue does not diminish or alter
any substantive right cognizable under § 1983. As the majority
concedes, the Wisconsin courts "will hear the entire § 1983 cause
of action once a plaintiff complies with the notice of claim
statute."
Ante at
487 U. S. 145.
Unable to find support for its position in § 1983 itself, or in
its legislative history, the majority suggests that the Wisconsin
statute somehow "discriminates against the federal right."
Ante at
487 U. S. 141.
The Wisconsin statute, however, applies to all actions against
municipal defendants, whether brought under state or federal law.
The majority is therefore compelled to adopt a new theory of
discrimination, under which the challenged statute is said to
"conditio[n] the right to bring suit against the very persons
and entities [
viz., local governments and officials]
Congress intended to subject to liability."
Ante at
487 U. S.
144-145. This theory, however, is untenable. First, the
statute erects no barrier at all to a plaintiff's right to bring a
§ 1983 suit against anyone. Every plaintiff has the option of
proceeding in federal court, and the Wisconsin statute has not the
slightest effect on that right. Second, if a plaintiff chooses to
proceed in the Wisconsin state courts, those courts stand ready to
hear the entire federal
Page 487 U. S. 161
cause of action, as the majority concedes.
See ante at
487 U. S. 145.
Thus, the Wisconsin statute "discriminates" only against a right
that Congress has never created: the right of a plaintiff to have
the benefit of selected federal court procedures after the
plaintiff has rejected the federal forum and chosen a state forum
instead. The majority's "discrimination" theory is just another
version of its unsupported conclusion that Congress intended to
force the state courts to adopt procedural rules from the federal
courts.
The Court also suggests that there is some parallel between this
case and cases that are tried in federal court under the doctrine
of
Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S.
64 (1938). Quoting the "outcome-determinative" test of
Guaranty Trust Co. v. York, 326 U. S.
99,
326 U. S. 109
(1945), the Court opines today that state courts hearing federal
suits are obliged to mirror federal procedures to the same extent
that federal courts are obliged to mirror state procedures in
diversity suits. This suggestion seems to be based on a sort of
upside-down theory of federalism, which the Court attributes to
Congress on the basis of no evidence at all. Nor are the
implications of this "reverse-
Erie" theory quite clear. If
the Court means the theory to be taken seriously, it should follow
that defendants, as well as plaintiffs, are entitled to the benefit
of all federal court procedural rules that are "outcome
determinative." If, however, the Court means to create a rule that
benefits only plaintiffs, then the discussion of
Erie
principles is simply an unsuccessful effort to find some analogy,
no matter how attenuated, to today's unprecedented holding.
"Borrowing" cases under 42 U.S.C. § 1988, which the Court cites
several times, have little more to do with today's decision than
does
Erie. Under that statute and those cases, we are
sometimes called upon to fill in gaps in federal law by choosing a
state procedural rule for application in § 1983 actions brought in
federal court.
See, e.g., Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.
S. 261 (1985);
Burnett v. Grattan, 468 U. S.
42 (1984). The congressionally imposed necessity of
supplementing
Page 487 U. S. 162
federal law with state procedural rules might well caution us
against
supplanting state procedural rules with federal
gaps, but it certainly offers no support for what the Court does
today.
Finally, JUSTICE WHITE's concurrence argues that Wisconsin's
notice of claim statute is in the nature of a statute of
limitations, and that the principles articulated in
Wilson v.
Garcia, supra, preclude its application to any action under §
1983.
See ante at
487 U. S. 154-156. Assuming,
arguendo, that
state courts must apply the same statutes of limitations that
federal courts borrow under § 1988, the concurrence is mistaken in
treating this notice of claim requirement as a statute of
limitations. As the concurrence acknowledges, the 120-day claim
period established by the Wisconsin statute does not apply if the
local government had actual notice of the claim and has not been
prejudiced by the plaintiff's delay.
Ante at
487 U. S. 155,
n. 3. The concurrence suggests that the Wisconsin statute
nonetheless is equivalent to a statute of limitations, because the
present case demonstrates that "the
actual notice' requirement
is difficult to satisfy." Ibid. I agree that a
sufficiently burdensome notice of claim requirement could
effectively act as a statute of limitations. The facts of this
case, however, will not support such a characterization of the
Wisconsin law. The court below said that no "detailed claim for
damages" need be submitted; rather, the injured party need
only
"recit[e] the facts giving rise to the injury and [indicate] an
intent . . . to hold the city responsible for any damages resulting
from the injury."
139 Wis.2d 614, 630,
408
N.W.2d 19, 26 (1987) (citations omitted). It has not been
suggested that petitioner tried to comply with this requirement but
encountered difficulties in doing so. Indeed, it would have been
easier to file the required notice of claim than to file this
lawsuit, which petitioner proved himself quite capable of doing.
Far from encountering "difficulties" in complying with the notice
of claim statute, petitioner never tried.
Page 487 U. S. 163
As I noted at the outset, the majority correctly characterizes
the issue before us as one of statutory preemption. In order to
arrive at the result it has chosen, however, the Court is forced to
search for "inconsistencies" between Wisconsin's notice of claim
statute and some ill-defined federal policy that Congress has never
articulated, implied, or suggested, let alone enacted. Nor is there
any difficulty in explaining the absence of congressional attention
to the problem that the Court wrongly imagines it is solving. A
plaintiff who chooses to bring a § 1983 action in state court
necessarily rejects the federal courts that Congress has provided.
Virtually the only conceivable reason for doing so is to benefit
from procedural advantages available exclusively in state court.
Having voted with their feet for state procedural systems, such
plaintiffs would hardly be in a position to ask Congress for a new
type of forum that combines the advantages that Congress gave them
in the federal system with those that Congress did
not
give them, and which are only available in state courts.
Fortunately for these plaintiffs, however, Congress need not be
consulted. The concept of statutory preemption takes on new meaning
today, and it is one from which I respectfully dissent.