Lead Opinion
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question whether a State, or an official of the State while acting in his or her official capacity, is a “person” within the meaning of Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983.
Petitioner Ray Will filed suit in Michigan Circuit Court alleging various violations of the United States and Michigan Constitutions as grounds for a claim under §1983.
The Circuit Court remanded the case to the Michigan Civil Service Commission for a grievance hearing. While the grievance was pending, petitioner filed suit in the Michigan
The Michigan Court of Appeals vacated the judgment against the Department of State Police, holding that a State is not a person under § 1983, but remanded the case for determination of the possible immunity of the Director of State Police from liability for damages. The Michigan Supreme Court granted discretionary review and affirmed the Court of Appeals in part and reversed in part. Smith v. Department of Pub. Health,
The Michigan Supreme Court’s holding that a State is not a person under § 1983 conflicts with a number of state- and federal-court decisions to the contrary.
But in Monell, the Court overruled Monroe, holding that a municipality was a person under § 1983.
Some courts, including the Michigan Supreme Court here, have construed our decision in Quern v. Jordan,
Petitioner filed the present § 1983 actions in Michigan state court, which places the question whether a State is a person under § 1983 squarely before us since the Eleventh Amend
We observe initially that if a State is a “person” within the meaning of § 1983, the section is to be read as saying that “every person, including a State, who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects . . . .” That would be a decidedly awkward way of expressing an intent to subject the States to liability. At the very least, reading the statute in this way is not so clearly indicated that it provides reason to depart from the often-expressed understanding that “fin common usage, the term ‘person’ does not include the sovereign, [and] statutes employing the [word] are ordinarily construed to exclude it.’” Wilson v. Omaha Tribe,
This approach is particularly applicable where it is claimed that Congress has subjected the States to liability to which they had not been subject before. In Wilson v. Omaha Tribe, supra, we followed this rule in construing the phrase “white person” contained in 25 U. S. C. § 194, enacted as Act of June 30, 1834, 4 Stat. 729, as not including the “sovereign States of the Union.”
Our conclusion that a State is not a “person” within the meaning of § 1983 is reinforced by Congress’ purpose in en
Section 1983 provides a federal forum to remedy many deprivations of civil liberties, but it does not provide a federal forum for litigants who seek a remedy against a State for alleged deprivations of civil liberties. The Eleventh Amendment bars such suits unless the State has waived its immunity, Welch v. Texas Dept. of Highways and Public Transportation,
This does not mean, as petitioner suggests, that we think that the scope of the Eleventh Amendment and the scope of § 1983 are not separate issues. Certainly they are. But in deciphering congressional intent as to the scope of § 1983, the
Our conclusion is further supported by our holdings that in enacting §1983, Congress did not intend to override well-established immunities or defenses under the common law. “One important assumption underlying the Court’s decisions in this area is that members of the 42d Congress were familiar with common-law principles, including defenses previously recognized in ordinary tort litigation, and that they likely intended these common-law principles to obtain, absent specific provisions to the contrary.” Newport v. Fact Concerts, Inc.,
Although there were sharp and heated debates, the discussion of § 1 of the bill, which contained the present § 1983, was not extended. And although in other respects the impact on state sovereignty was much talked about, no one suggested that § 1 would subject the States themselves to a damages suit under federal law. Quern,
Likewise, the Act of Feb. 25, 1871, §2, 16 Stat. 431 (the “Dictionary Act”),
Finally, Monell itself is not to the contrary. True, prior to Monell the Court had reasoned that -if municipalities were not persons then surely States also were not. Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer,
Petitioner asserts, alternatively, that state officials should be considered “persons” under § 1983 even though acting in their official capacities. In this case, petitioner named as defendant not only the Michigan Department of State Police but also the Director of State Police in his official capacity.
We hold that neither a State nor its officials acting in their official capacities are “persons” under § 1983. The judgment of the Michigan Supreme Court is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Notes
Section 1983 provides as follows:
“Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, 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. For the purposes of this section, any Act of Congress applicable exclusively to the District of Columbia shall be considered to be a statute of the District of Columbia.” 42 U. S. C. § 1983.
Also named as defendants were the Michigan Department of Civil Service and the State Personnel Director, but those parties were subsequently dismissed by the state courts.
The courts in the following cases have taken the position that a State is a person under § 1983. See Della Grotta v. Rhode Island,
A larger number of courts have agreed with the Michigan Supreme Court that a State is not a person under § 1983. See Ruiz v. Estelle, 679
Petitioner cites a number of cases from this Court that he asserts have “assumed” that a State is a person. Those cases include ones in which a State has been sued by name under § 1983, see, e. g., Maine v. Thiboutot,
Jefferson County Pharmaceutical Assn. v. Abbott Laboratories,
. Petitioner argues that Congress would not have considered the Eleventh Amendment in enacting § 1983 because in 1871 this Court had not yet held that the Eleventh Amendment barred federal-question cases against States in federal court. This argument is no more than an attempt to have this Court reconsider Quern v. Jordan,
Our recognition in Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services,
. The Dictionary Act provided that
“in all acts hereafter passed . . . the word ‘person’ may extend and be applied to bodies politic and corporate . . . unless the context shows that such words were intended to be used in a more limited sense.” Act of Feb. 25, 1871, §2, 16 Stat. 431.
See United States v. Fox,
Justice BRENNAN appears to confuse this precise definition of the phrase with its use “in a rather loose way,” see Black, supra, at 143, to refer to the state (as opposed to a State). This confusion is revealed most clearly in Justice Brennan’s reliance on the 1979 edition of Black’s Law Dictionary, which defines “body politic or corporate” as “[a] social compact by which the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people, that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good.” Post, at 79. To the extent Justice Brennan’s citation of other authorities does not suffer from the same confusion, those authorities at best suggest that the phrase is ambiguous, which still renders the Dictionary Act incapable of supplying the necessary clear intent.
Of course a state official in his or her official capacity, when sued for injunctive relief, would be a person under § 1983 because “official-capacity actions for prospective relief are not treated as actions against the State.” Kentucky v. Graham,
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting.
Because this case was brought in state court, the Court concedes, the Eleventh Amendment is inapplicable here. See ante, at 63-64. Like the guest who would not leave,
1 — (
Section 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, renders certain “persons” liable for deprivations of constitutional rights. The question presented is whether the word “person” in this statute includes the States and state officials acting in their official capacities.
One might expect that this statutory question would generate a careful and thorough analysis of the language, legislative history, and general background of § 1983. If this is what one expects, however, one will be disappointed by today’s decision. For this case is not decided on the basis of our ordinary method of statutory construction; instead, the Court disposes of it by means of various rules of statutory interpretation that it summons to its aid each time the question looks close. Specifically, the Court invokes the following interpretative principles: the word “persons” is ordinarily construed to exclude the sovereign; congressional intent to affect the federal-state balance must be “clear and manifest”; and intent to abrogate States’ Eleventh Amendment immunity must appear in the language of the statute itself. The Court apparently believes that each of these rules obviates the need for close analysis of a statute’s language and history. Properly applied, however, only the last of these interpretative principles has this effect, and that principle is not pertinent to the case before us.
The Court invokes, first, the “often-expressed understanding” that “ ‘in common usage, the term “person” does not include the sovereign, [and] statutes employing the [word] are ordinarily construed to exclude it.’” Ante, at 64, quoting Wilson v. Omaha Tribe,
The idea that the word “persons” ordinarily excludes the sovereign can be traced to the “familiar principle that the King is not bound by any act of Parliament unless he be named therein by special and particular words.” Dollar Savings Bank v. United States,
Even if this interpretive principle were relevant to this case, the Court’s invocation of it to the exclusion of careful statutory analysis is in error. As we have made clear, this principle is merely “an aid to consistent construction of statutes of the enacting sovereign when their purpose is in
“But there is no hard and fast rule of exclusion. The purpose, the subject matter, the context, the legislative history, and the executive interpretation of the statute are aids to construction which may indicate an intent, by the use of the term, to bring state or nation within the scope of the law.
“Decision is not to be reached by a strict construction of the words of the Act, nor by the application of artificial canons of construction. On the contrary, we are to read the statutory language in its ordinary and natural sense, and if doubts remain, resolve them in the light, not only of the policy intended to be served by the enactment, but, as well, by all other available aids to construction.” United States v. Cooper Corp.,312 U. S. 600 , 604-605 (1941).
See also Wilson v. Omaha Indian Tribe, supra, at 667 (“There is . . . ‘no hard and fast rule of exclusion,’ United States v. Cooper Corp., [
The second interpretive principle that the Court invokes comes from cases such as Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp.,
The only principle of statutory construction employed by the Court that would justify a perfunctory and inconclusive analysis of a statute’s language and history is one that is irrelevant to this case. This is the notion “that if Congress intends to alter the ‘usual constitutional balance between the States and the Federal Government,’ it must make its intention to do so ‘unmistakably clear in the language of the statute.’” Ante, at 65, quoting Atascadero State Hospital v. Scanlon,
Where the Eleventh Amendment applies, the Court has devised a clear-statement principle more robust than its requirement of clarity in any other situation. Indeed, just today, the Court has intimated that this clear-statement principle is not simply a means of discerning congressional intent. See Dellmuth v. Muth, post, at 232 (concluding that one may not rely on a “permissible inference” from a statute’s language and structure in finding abrogation of immunity); post,
That this Court has generated a uniquely daunting requirement of clarity in Eleventh Amendment cases explains why Quern v. Jordan,
The singularity of this Court’s approach to statutory interpretation in Eleventh Amendment cases also refutes the Court’s argument that, given Quern’s holding, it would make no sense to construe § 1983 to include States as “persons.” See ante, at 66. This is so, the Court suggests, because such a construction would permit suits against States in state but not federal court, even though a major purpose of Congress in enacting § 1983 was to provide a federal forum for litigants who had been deprived of their constitutional rights. See, e. g., Monroe v. Pape,
In short, the only principle of statutory interpretation that permits the Court to avoid a careful and thorough analysis of § 1983’s language and history is the clear-statement principle that this Court has come to apply in Eleventh Amendment cases — a principle that is irrelevant to this state-court action. In my view, a careful and detailed analysis of § 1983 leads to the conclusion that States are “persons” within the meaning of that statute.
II
Section 1983 provides:
“Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, 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.”
Although § 1983 itself does not define the term “person,” we are not without a statutory definition of this word. “Any analysis of the meaning of the word ‘person’ in § 1983 . . . must begin . . . with the Dictionary Act.” Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services,
“That in all acts hereafter passed . . . the word ‘person’ may extend and be applied to bodies politic and corporate . . . unless the context shows that such words were intended to be used in a more limited sense . . . Act of Feb. 25, 1871, §2, 16 Stat. 431.
In Monell, we held this definition to be not merely allowable but mandatory, requiring that the word “person” be construed to include “bodies politic and corporate” unless the statute under consideration “by its terms called for a deviation from this practice.”
Both before and after the time when the Dictionary Act and § 1983 were passed, the phrase “bodies politic and corporate” was understood to include the States. See, e. g., J. Bouvier, 1 A Law Dictionary Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States of America 185 (11th ed. 1866); W. Shumaker & G. Longsdorf, Cyclopedic Dictionary of Law 104 (1901); Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 Dali. 419, 447 (1793) (Iredell, J.); id., at 468 (Cushing, J.); Cotton v. United States,
The reason why States are “bodies politic and corporate” is simple: just as a corporation is an entity that can act only through its agents, “[t]he State is a political corporate body, can act only through agents, and can command only by laws.” Poindexter v. Greenhow, supra, at 288. See also Black’s Law Dictionary 159 (5th ed. 1979) (“[B]ody politic or corporate”: “A social compact by which the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people, that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good”). As a “body politic and corporate,” a State falls squarely within the Dictionary Act’s definition of a “person.”
While it is certainly true that the phrase “bodies politic and corporate” referred to private and public corporations, see ante, at 69, and n. 9, this fact does not draw into question the conclusion that this phrase also applied to the States. Phrases may, of course, have multiple referents. Indeed, each and every dictionary cited by the Court accords a broader realm — one that comfortably, and in most cases explicitly, includes the sovereign — to this phrase than the Court gives it today. See 1 B. Abbott, Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence 155 (1879) (“[T]he term body politic is often used in a general way, as meaning the state or the sovereign power, or the city government, without implying any distinct express incorporation”); W. Anderson, A Dictionary of Law 127 (1893) (“[B]ody politic”: “The governmental, sovereign power: a city or a State”); Black’s Law Dictionary 143 (1891) (“[Bjody politic”: “It is often used, in a rather loose way, to designate the state or nation or sovereign power, or the government of a county or municipality, without distinctly connoting any express and individual corporate charter”); 1 A. Burrill, A Law Dictionary and Glossary 212 (2d ed. 1871) (“[B]ody politic”: “A body to take in succession, framed by policy”', “[pjarticu-
Because I recognize that both uses of this phrase were deemed valid when § 1983 and the Dictionary Act were passed, the Court accuses me of “confusing] [the] precise definition of [this] phrase with its use ‘in a rather loose way,’ ” “to refer to the state (as opposed to a State).” Ante, at 70, n. 9, quoting Black, supra, at 143. It had never occurred to me, however, that only “precise” definitions counted as valid ones. Where the question we face is what meaning Congress attached to a particular word or phrase, we usually — and properly — are loath to conclude that Congress meant to use the word or phrase in a hypertechnical sense unless it said so. Nor does the Court’s distinction between “the state” and “a State” have any force. The suggestion, I take it, is that the phrase “bodies politic and corporate” refers only to nations rather than to the states within a nation; but then the Court must explain why so many of the sources I have quoted refer to states in addition to nations. In an opinion so utterly devoted to the rights of the States as sovereigns, moreover, it is surprising indeed to find the Court distinguishing between our sovereign States and our sovereign Nation.
In deciding what the phrase “bodies politic and corporate” means, furthermore, I do not see the relevance of the meaning of the term “public corporation.” See ante, at 69-70, n. 9. That is not the phrase chosen by Congress in the Dictionary Act, and the Court’s suggestion that this phrase is coterminous with the phrase “bodies politic and corporate” begs the question whether the latter one includes the States. Nor do I grasp the significance of this Court’s decision in United States v. Fox,
The relevance of the fact that § 2 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, 14 Stat. 27, — the model for § 1 of the 1871 Act — was passed before the Dictionary Act, see ante, at 69, similarly eludes me. Congress chose to use the word “person” in the 1871 Act even after it had passed the Dictionary Act, presumptively including “bodies politic and corporate” within the category of “persons.” Its decision to do so — and its failure to indicate in the 1871 Act that the Dictionary Act’s presumption was not to apply — demonstrate that Congress did indeed intend “persons” to include bodies politic and corporate. In addition, the Dictionary Act’s definition of “person” by no means dropped from the sky. Many of the authorities cited above predate both the Dictionary Act and the 1866 Act, indicating that the word “persons” in 1866 ordinarily would have been thought to include “bodies politic and corporate,” with or without the Dictionary Act.
This last point helps to explain why it is a matter of small importance that the Dictionary Act’s definition of “person” as including bodies politic and corporate was retroactively withdrawn when the federal statutes were revised in 1874. See T. Durant, Report to Joint Committee on Revision of Laws 2 (1873). Only two months after presumptively designating bodies politic and corporate as “persons,” Congress chose the word “person” for § 1 of the Civil Rights Act. For the purpose of determining Congress’ intent in using this
Thus, the question before us is whether the presumption that the word “person” in § 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871 included bodies politic and corporate — and hence the States — is overcome by anything in the statute’s language and history. Certainly nothing in the statutory language overrides this presumption. The statute is explicitly directed at action taken “under color of” state law, and thus supports rather than refutes the idea that the “persons” mentioned in the statute include the States. Indeed, for almost a century — until Monroe v. Pape,
Unimpressed by such arguments, the Court simply asserts that reading “States” where the statute mentions “person” would be “decidedly awkward.” Ante, at 64. The Court does not describe the awkwardness that it perceives, but I take it that its objection is that the under-color-of-law
Taking the example closest to this case, we might have observed in Monell that § 1983 was clumsily written if it included municipalities, since these, too, may act only under color of state authority. Nevertheless, we held there that the statute does apply to municipalities.
The legislative history and background of the statute confirm that the presumption created by the Dictionary Act was not overridden in § 1 of the 1871 Act, and that, even without such a presumption, it is plain that “person” in the 1871 Act must include the States. I discussed in detail the legislative history of this statute in my opinion concurring in the judg
As to the more general historical background of §1, we too easily forget, I think, the circumstances existing in this country when the early civil rights statutes were passed. “[V]iewed against the events and passions of the time,” United States v. Price,
“The Civil War had ended in April 1865. Relations between Negroes and whites were increasingly turbulent. Congress had taken control of the entire governmental process in former Confederate States. It had declared the governments in 10 ‘unreconstructed’ States to be illegal and had set up federal military administrations in their place. Congress refused to seat representatives from these States until they had adopted constitutions guaranteeing Negro suffrage, and had ratified the Fourteenth Amendment. Constitutional conventions were called in 1868. Six of the 10 States fulfilled Congress’ requirements in 1868, the other four by 1870.
“For a few years ‘radical’ Republicans dominated the governments of the Southern States and Negroes played a substantial political role. But countermeasures were swift and violent. The Ku Klux Klan was organized by southern whites in 1866 and a similar organization appeared with the romantic title of the Knights of the*85 White Camellia. In 1868 a wave of murders and assaults was launched including assassinations designed to keep Negroes from the polls. The States themselves were helpless, despite the resort by some of them to extreme measures such as making it legal to hunt down and shoot any disguised man.
“Within the Congress pressures mounted in the period between the end of the war and 1870 for drastic measures. A few months after the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment on December 6, 1865, Congress, on April 9, 1866, enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1866 .... On June 13, 1866, the Fourteenth Amendment was proposed, and it was ratified in July 1868. In February 1869 the Fifteenth Amendment was proposed, and it was ratified in February 1870. On May 31, 1870, the Enforcement Act of 1870 was enacted.” Id., at 803-805 (footnotes omitted).
This was a Congress in the midst of altering the “ ‘balance between the States and the Federal Government.’” Ante, at 65, quoting Atascadero State Hospital v. Scanlon,
Ill
To describe the breadth of the Court’s holding is to demonstrate its unwisdom. If States are not “persons” within the meaning of § 1983, then they may not be sued under that statute regardless of whether they have consented to suit. Even if, in other words, a State formally and explicitly consented to suits against it in federal or state court, no § 1983 plaintiff could proceed against it because States are not within the statute’s category of possible defendants.
The Court appears to be driven to this peculiar result in part by its view that “in enacting § 1983, Congress did not intend to override well-established immunities or defenses under the common law.” Ante, at 67. But the question whether States are “persons” under §1983 is separate and distinct from the question whether they may assert a defense of common-law sovereign immunity. In our prior decisions involving common-law immunities, we have not held that the existence of an immunity defense excluded the relevant state actor from the category of “persons” liable under § 1983, see, e. g., Forrester v. White,
For my part, I would reverse the judgment below and remand for resolution of the question whether Michigan would assert common-law sovereign immunity in defense to this suit and, if so, whether that assertion of immunity would preclude the suit.
Given the suggestion in the court below that Michigan enjoys no common-law immunity for violations of its own Constitution, Smith v. Department of Public Health,
Because the court below disposed of the case on the ground that States were not “persons” within the meaning of § 1983, it did not pass upon these difficult and important questions. I therefore would remand this case to the state court to resolve these questions in the first instance.
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting.
Legal doctrines often flourish long after their raison d’etre has perished.
In our administration of § 1983, we have also relied on fictions to protect the illusion that a sovereign State, absent consent, may not be held accountable for its delicts in federal court. Under a settled course of decision, in contexts ranging from school desegregation to the provision of public
An official-capacity suit is the typical way in which we have held States responsible for their duties under federal law. Such a suit, we have explained, “ ‘generally represents] only another way of pleading an action against an entity of which an officer is an agent.’” Kentucky v. Graham,
In Milliken v. Bradley, supra, for example, a unanimous Court upheld a federal-court order requiring the State of Michigan to pay $5,800,000 to fund educational components in a desegregation decree “notwithstanding [its] direct and substantial impact on the state treasury.” Id., at 289 (emphasis added).
Our treatment of States as “persons” under § 1983 is also exemplified by our decisions holding that ancillary relief, such as attorney’s fees, may be awarded directly against the State. We have explained that “liability on the merits and responsibility for fees go hand in hand; where a defendant has not been prevailed against, either because of legal immunity
The Civil Rights Act of 1871 was “intended to provide a remedy, to be broadly construed, against all forms of official violation of federally protected rights.” Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services,
The Court concludes, however, that “a state official in his or her official capacity, when sued for injunctive relief, would be a person under § 1983,” ante, at 71, n. 10, while that same party sued in the same official capacity is not a person when the plaintiff seeks monetary relief. It cites in support of this.,, proposition cases such as Osborn v. Bank of United States,
On the Court’s supposition, the question would be whether the complaint against a state official states a claim for the type of relief sought, not whether it will have an impact on the state treasury. See, e. g., Governor of Georgia v. Madrazo,
The Court having constructed an edifice for the purposes of the Eleventh Amendment on the theory that the State is always the real party in interest in a § 1983 official-capacity action against a state officer, I would think the majority would be impelled to conclude that the State is a “person” under § 1983. As Justice Brennan has demonstrated, there is also a compelling textual argument that States are persons under § 1983. In addition, the Court’s construction draws an illogical distinction between wrongs committed by county or municipal officials on the one hand, and those committed by state officials on the other. Finally, there is no necessity to
I respectfully dissent.
“A very common phenomenon, and one very familiar to the student of history, is this. The customs, beliefs, or needs of a primitive time establish a rule or a formula. In the course of centuries the custom, belief, or necessity disappears, but the rule remains. The reason which gave rise to the rule has been forgotten and ingenious minds set themselves to inquire how it is to be accounted for. Some ground of policy is thought of, which seems to explain it and to reconcile it with the present state of things; and then the rule adapts itself to the new reasons which have been found for it, and enters on a new career. The old form receives a new content, and in time even the form modifies itself to fit the meaning which it has received.” 0. Holmes, The Common Law 8 (M. Howe ed. 1963).
See 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *246 (“The king, moreover, is not only incapable of doing wrong, but even of thinking wrong; he can never mean to do an improper thing”).
In the first chapter of his classic History of England, published in 1849, Thomas Macaulay wrote:
“Of these kindred constitutions the English was, from an early period, justly reputed the best. The prerogatives of the sovereign were undoubtedly extensive.
“But his power, though ample, was limited by three great constitutional principles, so ancient that none can say when they began to exist, so potent that their natural development, continued through many generations, has produced the order of things under which we now live.
“First, the King could not legislate without the consent of his Parliament. Secondly, he could impose no tax without the consent of his Parliament. Thirdly, he was bound to conduct the executive administration according to the laws of the land, and, if he broke those laws, his advisers and his agents were responsible.” 1 T. Macaulay, History of England 28-29. In the United States as well, at the time of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, actions against agents of the sovereign were the means by which the State, despite its own immunity, was required to obey the law. See, e. g., Poindexter v. Greenhow,114 U. S. 270 , 297 (1885) (“The fancied inconvenience of an interference with the collection of its taxes by the govenment of Virginia, by suits against its tax collectors, vanishes at once upon the suggestion that such interference is not possible, except when that government seeks to enforce the collection of its taxes contrary to the law and contract of the State, and in violation of the Constitution of the United States”); Davis v. Gray,16 Wall. 203 , 220 (1873) (“Where the State is concerned, the State should be made a party, if it could be done. That it cannot be done is a sufficient reason for the omission to do it, and the court may proceed to decree against the officers of the State in all respects as if the State were a party to the record”).
. We noted in Hutto v. Finney,
“In Milliken v. Bradley, [433 U. S. 267 (1977)], we affirmed an order requiring a state treasurer to pay a substantial sum to another litigant, even though the District Court’s opinion explicitly recognized that ‘this remedial decree will be paid for by the taxpayers of the City of Detroit and the State of Michigan,’ App. to Pet. for Cert, in Milliken v. Bradley, O. T. 1976, No. 76-447, pp. 116a-117a, and even though the Court of Appeals, in affirming, stated that ‘the District Court ordered that the State and Detroit Board each pay one-half the costs' of relief. Bradley v. Milliken,540 F. 2d 229 , 245 (CA6 1976).”
We explained that the legislative history evinced Congress’ intent that attorney’s fees be assessed against the State:
“The legislative history is equally plain: ‘[I]t is intended that the attorneys’ fees, like other items of costs, will be collected either directly from the official, in his official capacity, from funds of his agency or under his control, or from the State or local government (whether or not the agency or government is a named party).’ S. Rep. No. 94-1011, p. 5 (1976) (footnote omitted). The House Report is in accord: ‘The greater resources available to governments provide an ample base from which fees can be awarded to the prevailing plaintiff in suits against governmental officials or entities.’ H. R. Rep. No. 94-1558, p. 7 (1976). The Report added in a footnote that: ‘Of course, the 11th Amendment is not a bar to the awarding of counsel fees against state governments. Fitzpartick v. Bitzer.’ Id., at 7, n. 14. Congress’ intent was expressed in deeds as well as words. It rejected at least two attempts to amend the Act and immunize state and local governments from awards.” Hutto, supra, at 694.
The Court is surely incorrect to assert that a determination that a State is a person under § 1983 was unnecessary to our decisions awarding attorney’s fees against a State or state agency. Ante, at 63, n. 4. If there was no basis for liability because the State or state agency was not a party under § 1983, it is difficult to see how there was a basis for imposition of fees.
Indeed, we have never questioned that a State is a proper defendant in a § 1983 action when the State has consented to being joined in its own name in a suit in federal court, see Alabama v. Pugh,
Cf. City of Kenosha v. Bruno,