author: Justice Breyer

text:
    LAPIDES v. BOARD OF REGENTS OF UNIVERSITY SYSTEM OF GEORGIA et al.
    No. 01-298.
    Argued February 25, 2002 —
    Decided May 13, 2002

      David J. Bederman argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Michael J. Bowers and Patrick W. McKee.

      Irving L. Gornstein argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Olson, Assistant Attorney General McCallum, Deputy Solicitor General Clement, Mark B. Stern, and Alisa B. Klein.

      Devon Orland, Assistant Attorney General of Georgia, argued the cause for respondents. With her on the brief were Thurbert E. Baker, Attorney General, Kathleen Pacious, Deputy Attorney General, and John C. Jones and Patricia Downing, Senior Assistant Attorneys General.

      Julie Caruthers Parsley, Solicitor General of Texas, argued the cause for the State of Texas et al. as amici curiae urging affirmance. With her on the brief were John Cornyn, Attorney General, Jeffrey S. Boyd, Deputy Attorney General, and Lisa R. Eskow, Assistant Solicitor General, and the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: Bill Pryor of Alabama, Bruce M. Botelho of Alaska, Ken Salazar of Colorado, M. Jane Brady of Delaware, Robert A. Butterworth of Florida, James E. Ryan of Illinois, Steve Carter of Indiana, Thomas J. Miller of Iowa, Carla J. Stovall of Kansas, Richard P. Ieyoub of Louisiana, J. Joseph Curran, Jr., of Maryland, Thomas F. Reilly of Massachusetts, Jennifer M. Granholm of Michigan, Mike Moore of Mississippi, Don Stenberg of Nebraska, Frankie Sue Del Papa of Nevada, David Samson of New Jersey, Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Wayne Stenehjem of North Dakota, Betty D. Montgomery of Ohio, W. A. Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma, D. Michael Fisher of Pennsylvania, Paul G. Summers of Tennessee, Mark L. Shurtleff of Utah, William H. Sorrell of Vermont, and Jerry W Kilgore of Virginia.

        John Townsend Rich filed a brief for Ceres Marine Terminals, Inc., as amicus curiae urging reversal.

   Justice Breyer

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The Eleventh Amendment grants a State immunity from suit in federal court by citizens of other States, U. S. Const., Arndt. 11, and by its own citizens as well, Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U. S. 1 (1890). The question before us is whether the State’s act of removing a lawsuit from state court to federal court waives this immunity. We hold that it does.

I

Paul Lapides, a professor employed by the Georgia state university system, brought this lawsuit in a Georgia state court. He sued respondents, the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia (hereinafter Georgia or State) and university officials acting in both their personal capacities and as agents of the State. Lapides’ lawsuit alleged that university officials placed allegations of sexual harassment in his personnel files. And Lapides claimed that their doing so violated both Georgia law, see Georgia Tort Claims Act, Ga. Code Ann. §50-21-23 (1994), and federal law, see Civil Rights Act of 1871, Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983 (1994 ed., Supp. V).

All defendants joined in removing the case to Federal District Court, 28 U. S. C. § 1441, where they sought dismissal. Those individuals whom Lapides had sued in their personal capacities argued that the doctrine of “qualified immunity” barred Lapides’ federal-law claims against them. And the District Court agreed. The State, while conceding that a state statute had waived sovereign immunity from state-law suits in state court, argued that, by virtue of the Eleventh Amendment, it remained immune from suit in federal court. See U. S. Const., Amdt. 11 (limiting scope of “Judicial power of the United States” (emphasis added)). But the District Court did not agree. Rather, in its view, by removing the case from state to federal court, the State had waived its Eleventh Amendment immunity. See Atascadero State Hospital v. Scanlon, 473 U. S. 234, 238 (1985) (State may waive Eleventh Amendment immunity).

The State appealed the District Court’s Eleventh Amendment ruling. See Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority v. Metcalf & Eddy, Inc., 506 U. S. 139, 144-145 (1993) (allowing interlocutory appeal). And the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed. 251 F. 3d 1372 (2001). In its view, state law was, at the least, unclear as to whether the State’s attorney general possessed the legal authority to waive the State’s Eleventh Amendment immunity. And, that being so, the State retained the legal right to assert its immunity, even after removal. See Ford Motor Co. v. Department of Treasury of Ind., 323 U. S. 459 (1945).

Lapides sought certiorari. We agreed to decide whether “a state waive[s] its Eleventh Amendment immunity by its affirmative litigation conduct when it removes a case to federal court....” Pet. for Cert. (i).

It has become clear that we must limit our answer to the context of state-law claims, in respect to which the State has explicitly waived immunity from state-court proceedings. That is because Lapides’ only federal claim against the State arises under 42 U. S. C. § 1983, that claim seeks only monetary damages, and we have held that a State is not a “person” against whom a § 1983 claim for money damages might be asserted. Will v. Michigan Dept. of State Police, 491 U. S. 58, 66 (1989). Compare Tr. of Oral Arg. 57-58 (asserting that complaint also sought declaratory judgment on the federal claim), with complaint, App. 9-19 (failing, implicitly or explicitly, to seek any such relief). Hence this case does not present a valid federal claim against the State. Nor need we address the scope of waiver by removal in a situation where the State’s underlying sovereign immunity from suit has not been waived or abrogated in state court.

It has also become clear that, in the absence of any viable federal claim, the Federal District Court might well remand Lapides’ state-law tort claims against the State to state court. 28 U. S. C. § 1367(c)(3). Nonetheless, Lapides’ state-law tort claims against the State remain pending in Federal District Court, § 1367(a), and the law commits the remand question, ordinarily a matter of discretion, to the Federal District Court for decision in the first instance. Moor v. County of Alameda, 411 U. S. 693, 712 (1973). Hence, the question presented is not moot. We possess the legal power here to answer that question as limited to the state-law context just described. And, in light of differences of view among the lower courts, we shall do so. Compare McLaughlin v. Board of Trustees of State Colleges of Colo., 215 F. 3d 1168, 1171 (CA10 2000) (removal waives immunity regardless of attorney general’s state-law waiver authority); and Newfield House, Inc. v. Massachusetts Dept. of Public Welfare, 651 F. 2d 32, 36, n. 3 (CA1 1981) (similar); with Estate of Porter ex rel. Nelson v. Illinois, 36 F. 3d 684, 690-691 (CA7 1994) (removal does not waive immunity); Silver v. Baggiano, 804 F. 2d 1211, 1214 (CA11 1986) (similar); and Gwinn Area Community Schools v. Michigan, 741 F. 2d 840, 846-847 (CA6 1984) (similar).

II

The Eleventh Amendment provides that the “Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit . . . commenced or prosecuted against one of the . . . States” by citizens of another State, U. S. Const., Amdt. 11, and (as interpreted) by its own citizens. Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U. S. 1 (1890). A State remains free to waive its Eleventh Amendment immunity from suit in a federal court. See, e.g., Atascadero, supra, at 238. And the question before us now is whether a State waives that immunity when it removes a case from state court to federal court.

It would seem anomalous or inconsistent for a State both (1) to invoke federal jurisdiction, thereby contending that the “Judicial power of the United States” extends to the case at hand, and (2) to claim Eleventh Amendment immunity, thereby denying that the “Judicial power of the United States” extends to the case at hand. And a Constitution that permitted States to follow their litigation interests by freely asserting both claims in the same case could generate seriously unfair results. Thus, it is not surprising that more than a century ago this Court indicated that a State’s voluntary appearance in federal court amounted to a waiver of its Eleventh Amendment immunity. Clark v. Barnard, 108 U. S. 436, 447 (1883) (State’s “voluntary appearance” in federal court as an intervenor avoids Eleventh Amendment inquiry). The Court subsequently held, in the context of a bankruptcy claim, that a State “waives any immunity . . . respecting the adjudication of” a “claim” that it voluntarily files in federal court. Gardner v. New Jersey, 329 U. S. 565, 574 (1947). And the Court has made clear in general that “where a State voluntarily becomes a party to a cause and submits its rights for judicial determination, it will be bound thereby and cannot escape the result of its own voluntary act by invoking the prohibitions of the Eleventh Amendment.” Gunter v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 200 U. S. 273, 284 (1906) (emphasis added). The Court has long accepted this statement of the law as valid, often citing with approval the cases embodying that principle. See, e. g., College Savings Bank v. Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Ed. Expense Bd., 527 U. S. 666, 681, n. 3 (1999) (citing Gardner); Employees of Dept. of Public Health and Welfare of Mo. v. Department of Public Health and Welfare of Mo., 411 U. S. 279, 294, and n. 10 (1973) (Marshall, J., concurring in result) (citing Clark); Petty v. Tennessee-Missouri Bridge Comm'n, 359 U. S. 275, 276 (1959) (citing Clark).

In this case, the State was brought involuntarily into the case as a defendant in the original state-court proceedings. But the State then voluntarily agreed to remove the case to federal court. See 28 U. S. C. § 1446(a); Chicago, R. I. & P. R. Co. v. Martin, 178 U. S. 245, 248 (1900) (removal requires the consent of all defendants). In doing so, it voluntarily invoked the federal court’s jurisdiction. And unless we are to abandon the general principle just stated, or unless there is something special about removal or about this case, the general legal principle requiring waiver ought to apply.

We see no reason to abandon the general principle. Georgia points out that the cases that stand for the principle, Gunter, Gardner, and Clark, did not involve suits for money damages against the State — the heart of the Eleventh Amendment’s concern. But the principle enunciated in those cases did not turn upon the nature of the relief sought. And that principle remains sound as applied to suits for money damages.

Georgia adds that this Court decided Gunter, Gardner, and Clark before it decided more recent cases, which have required a “clear” indication of the State’s intent to waive its immunity. College Savings Bank, 527 U. S., at 675-681. But College Savings Bank distinguished the kind of constructive waivers repudiated there from waivers effected by litigation conduct. Id., at 681, n. 3. And this makes sense because an interpretation of the Eleventh Amendment that finds waiver in the litigation context rests upon the Amendment’s presumed recognition of the judicial need to avoid inconsistency, anomaly, and unfairness, and not upon a State’s actual preference or desire, which might, after all, favor selective use of “immunity” to achieve litigation advantages. See Wisconsin Dept. of Corrections v. Schacht, 524 U. S. 381, 393 (1998) (Kennedy, J., concurring). The relevant “clarity” here must focus on the litigation act the State takes that creates the waiver. And that act — removal—is clear.

Nor has Georgia pointed to any special feature, either of removal or of this case, that would justify taking the case out from under the general rule. Georgia argues that its motive for removal was benign. It agreed to remove, not in order to obtain litigating advantages for itself, but to provide its codefendants, the officials sued in their personal capacities, with the generous interlocutory appeal provisions available in federal, but not in state, court. Compare Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U. S. 511, 524-530 (1985) (authorizing interlocutory appeal of adverse qualified immunity determination), with Turner v. Giles, 264 Ga. 812, 813, 450 S. E. 2d 421, 424 (1994) (limiting interlocutory appeals to those certified by trial court). And it intended, from the beginning, to return to state court, when and if its codefendants had achieved their own legal victory.

A benign motive, however, cannot make the critical difference for which Georgia hopes. Motives are difficult to evaluate, while jurisdictional rules should be clear. See Hanover Star Milling Co. v. Metcalf, 240 U. S. 403, 426 (1916) (Holmes, J., concurring). To adopt the State’s Eleventh Amendment position would permit States to achieve unfair tactical advantages, if not in this case, in others. See Schacht, supra, at 393-394, 398 (Kennedy, J., concurring); cf. ALI, Study of the Division of Jurisdiction Between State and Federal Courts 366-367 (1968) (discussing the unfairness of allowing one who has invoked federal jurisdiction subsequently to challenge that jurisdiction). And that being so, the rationale for applying the general “voluntary invocation” principle is as strong here, in the context of removal, as elsewhere.

More importantly, Georgia argues that state law, while authorizing its attorney general “[t]o represent the state in all civil actions tried in any court,” Ga. Code Ann. §45-15-3(6) (1990); see Ga. Const., Art. 5, § 3, ¶ 4, does not authorize the attorney general to waive the State’s Eleventh Amendment immunity, id., Art. 1, §2,¶¶ 9(e), (f), reprinted in 2 Ga. Code Ann. (Supp. 1996). Georgia adds that in Ford, this Court unanimously interpreted roughly similar state laws similarly, that the Court held that “no properly authorized executive or administrative officer of the state has waived the state’s immunity,” 328 U. S., at 469, and that it sustained an Eleventh Amendment defense raised for the first time after a State had litigated a claim brought against it in federal court. That is to say, in Ford a State regained immunity by showing the attorney general’s lack of statutory authority to waive— even after the State litigated a case brought against it in federal court. Why, then, asks Georgia, can it not regain immunity in the same way, even after it removed its case to federal court?

The short answer to this question is that this case involves a State that voluntarily invoked the jurisdiction of the federal court, while Ford involved a State that a private plaintiff had involuntarily made a defendant in federal court. This Court consistently has found a waiver when a State’s attorney general, authorized (as here) to bring a case in federal court, has voluntarily invoked that court’s jurisdiction. See Gardner, 329 U. S., at 574-575; Gunter, 200 U. S., at 285-289, 292; cf. Clark, 108 U. S., at 447-448 (not inquiring into attorney general’s authority). And the Eleventh Amendment waiver rules are different when a State’s federal-court participation is involuntary. See Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U. S. 1 (1890); cf. U. S. Const., Amdt. 11 (discussing suits “commenced or prosecuted against” a State).

But there is a more important answer. In large part the rule governing voluntary invocations of federal jurisdiction has rested upon the problems of inconsistency and unfairness that a contrary rule of law would create. Gunter, supra, at 284. And that determination reflects a belief that neither those who wrote the Eleventh Amendment nor the States themselves (insofar as they authorize litigation in federal courts) would intend to create that unfairness. As in analogous contexts, in which such matters are questions of federal law, cf., e. g., Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Doe, 519 U. S. 425, 429, n. 5 (1997), whether a particular set of state laws, rules, or activities amounts to a waiver of the State’s Eleventh Amendment immunity is a question of federal law. A rule of federal law that finds waiver through a state attorney general’s invocation of federal-court jurisdiction avoids inconsistency and unfairness. A rule of federal law that, as in Ford, denies waiver despite the state attorney general’s state-authorized litigating decision, does the opposite. For these reasons one Member of this Court has called for Ford’s reexamination. Schacht, 524 U. S., at 394, 397 (Kennedy, J., concurring). And for these same reasons, we conclude that Clark, Gunter, and Gardner represent the sounder line of authority. Finding Ford inconsistent with the basic rationale of that line of cases, we consequently overrule Ford insofar as it would otherwise apply.

The State makes several other arguments, none of which we find convincing. It points to cases in which this Court has permitted the United States to enter into a case voluntarily without giving up immunity or to assert immunity despite a previous effort to waive. See United States v. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co., 309 U. S. 506 (1940); United States v. Shaw, 309 U. S. 495 (1940); see also Oklahoma Tax Comm’n v. Citizen Band Potawatomi Tribe of Okla., 498 U. S. 505 (1991). Those cases, however, do not involve the Eleventh Amendment — a specific text with a history that focuses upon the State’s sovereignty vis-a-vis the Federal Government. And each case involves special circumstances not at issue here, for example, an effort by a sovereign (i. e., the United States) to seek the protection of its own courts (1 e., the federal courts), or an effort to protect an Indian tribe.

Finally, Georgia says that our conclusion will prove confusing, for States will have to guess what conduct might be deemed a waiver in order to avoid accidental waivers. But we believe the rule is a clear one, easily applied by both federal courts and the States themselves. It says that removal is a form of voluntary invocation of a federal court’s jurisdiction sufficient to waive the State’s otherwise valid objection to litigation of a matter (here of state law) in a federal forum. As Justice Kennedy has pointed out, once “the States know or have reason to expect that removal will constitute a waiver, then it is easy enough to presume that an attorney authorized to represent the State can bind it to the jurisdiction of the federal court (for Eleventh Amendment purposes) by the consent to removal.” See Schacht, supra, at 397 (concurring opinion).

We conclude that the State’s action joining the removing of this case to federal court waived its Eleventh Amendment immunity — though, as we have said, the District Court may well find that this case, now raising only state-law issues, should nonetheless be remanded to the state courts for determination. 28 U. S. C. § 1367(c)(3).

For these reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.

It is so ordered.


source: Caselaw Access Project

author: Chief Justice Rehnquist

license: Public Domain

text:
    UNITED STATES v. COTTON et al.
    No. 01-687.
    Argued April 15, 2002 —
    Decided May 20, 2002

      Deputy Solicitor General Dreeben argued the cause for the United States. With him on the briefs were Solicitor

      General Olson, Assistant Attorney General Chertoff, Barbara McDowell, and Nina Goodman.

      Timothy J. Sullivan argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were Arthur S. Cheslock, James E. McCollum, Jr., Carter G. Phillips, Jeffrey T. Green, Paul J. Zidlicky, and Stanley H. Needleman.

        Clayton A. Sweeney, Jr., Mary Price, Peter Goldberger, David Porter, Joshua L. Dratel, and Lisa Bondareff Kemler filed a brief for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers et al. as amici curiae urging affirmance.

   Chief Justice Rehnquist

delivered the opinion of the Court.

In Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U. S. 466 (2000), we held that “[o]ther than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id., at 490. In federal prosecutions, such facts must also be charged in the indictment. Id., at 476 (quoting Jones v. United States, 526 U. S. 227, 243, n. 6 (1999)). In this case, we address whether the omission from a federal indictment of a fact that enhances the statutory maximum sentence justifies a court of appeals’ vacating the enhanced sentence, even though the defendant did not object in the trial court.

Respondent Stanley Hall, Jr., led a “vast drug organization” in Baltimore. 261 F. 3d 397, 401 (CA4 2001). The six other respondents helped run the operation. In October 1997, a federal grand jury returned an indictment charging respondents with conspiring to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute 5 kilograms or more of cocaine and 50 grams or more of cocaine base, in violation of 21 U. S. C. §§846 and 841(a)(1). A superseding indictment returned in March 1998, which extended the time period of the conspiracy and added five more defendants, charged a conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute a “detectable amount” of cocaine and cocaine báse. The superseding indictment did not allege any of the threshold levels of drug quantity that lead to enhanced penalties under § 841(b).

In accord with the superseding indictment, the District Court instructed the jury that “as long as you find that a defendant conspired to distribute or posses[s] with intent to distribute these controlled substances, the amounts involved are not important.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 6a (emphasis deleted). The jury found respondents guilty.

Congress established “a term of imprisonment of not more than 20 years” for drug offenses involving a detectable quantity of cocaine or cocaine base. § 841(b)(1)(C). But the District Court did not sentence respondents under this provision. Consistent with the practice in federal courts at the time, at sentencing the District Court made a finding of drug quantity that implicated the enhanced penalties of § 841(b)(1)(A), which prescribes “a term of imprisonment which may not be . . . more than life” for drug offenses involving at least 50 grams of cocaine base. The District Court found, based on the trial testimony, respondent Hall responsible for at least 500 grams of cocaine base, and the other respondents responsible for at least 1.5 kilograms of cocaine base. The court sentenced respondents Hall and Powell to 30 years' imprisonment and the other respondents to life imprisonment. Respondents did not object in the District Court to the fact that these sentences were based on an amount of drug quantity not alleged in the indictment.

While respondents’ appeal was pending in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, we decided Apprendi v. New Jersey, supra. Respondents then argued in the Court of Appeals that their sentences were invalid under Apprendi, because the issue of drug quantity was neither alleged in the indictment nor submitted to the petit jury. The Court of Appeals noted that respondents “failed to raise this argument before the district court” and thus reviewed the argument for plain error. 261 F. 3d, at 403 (citing Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 52(b)). A divided court nonetheless vacated respondents’ sentences , on the ground that “because an indictment setting forth all the essential elements of an offense is both mandatory and jurisdictional,... a court is without jurisdiction to . . . impose a sentence for an offense not charged in the indictment.” 261 F. 3d, at 404-405 (internal quotation marks omitted). Such an error, the Court of Appeals concluded, “seriously affects the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” Id., at 406. We granted certiorari, 534 U. S. 1074 (2002), and now reverse.

We first address the Court of Appeals’ conclusion that the omission from the indictment was a “jurisdictional” defect and thus required vacating respondents’ sentences. Ex parte Bain, 121 U. S. 1 (1887), is the progenitor of this view. In Bain, the indictment charged that Bain, the cashier and director of a bank, made false statements “with intent to deceive the Comptroller of the Currency and the agent appointed to examine the affairs” of the bank. Id., at 4. Before trial, the court struck the words “the Comptroller of the Currency and,” on the ground that they were superfluous. The jury found Bain guilty. Id., at 4-5. Bain challenged the amendment to the indictment in a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The Court concluded that the amendment was improper and that therefore “the jurisdiction of the offence [was] gone, and the court [had] no right to proceed any further in the progress of the case for want of an indictment.” Id., at 13.

Bain, however, is a product of an era in which this Court’s authority to review criminal convictions was greatly circumscribed. At the time it was decided, a defendant could not obtain direct review of his criminal conviction in the Supreme Court. See generally United States v. Sanges, 144 U. S. 310, 319-322 (1892); L. Orfield, Criminal Appeals in America 244-246 (1939). The Court’s authority to issue a writ of habeas corpus was limited to cases in which the convicting “court had no jurisdiction to render the judgment which it gave.” Bain, supra, at 3; see also Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 475, 485 (1973). In 1887, therefore, this Court could examine constitutional errors in a criminal trial only on a writ of habeas corpus, and only then if it deemed the error “jurisdictional.” The Court’s desire to correct obvious constitutional violations led to a “somewhat expansive notion of ‘jurisdiction,’” Custis v. United States, 511 U. S. 485, 494 (1994), which was “more a fiction than anything else,” Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U. S. 72, 79 (1977).

Bain's elastic concept of jurisdiction is not what the term “jurisdiction” means today, i. e., “the courts’ statutory or constitutional power to adjudicate the case.” Steel Co. v. Citizens for Better Environment, 523 U. S. 83, 89 (1998). This latter concept of subject-matter jurisdiction, because it involves a court’s power to hear a case, can never be forfeited or waived. Consequently, defects in subject-matter jurisdiction require correction regardless of whether the error was raised in district court. See, e. g., Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Mottley, 211 U. S. 149 (1908). In contrast, the grand jury right can be waived. See Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 7(b); Smith v. United States, 360 U. S. 1, 6 (1959).

Post-Bain eases confirm that defects in an indictment do not deprive a court of its power to adjudicate a case. In Lamar v. United States, 240 U. S. 60 (1916), the Court rejected the claim that “the court had no jurisdiction because the indictment does not charge a crime against the United States.” Id., at 64. Justice Holmes explained that a district court “has jurisdiction of all crimes cognizable under the authority of the United States . . . [and] [t]he objection that the indictment does not charge a crime against the United States goes only to the merits of the case.” Id., at 65. Similarly, United States v. Williams, 341 U. S. 58, 66 (1951), held that a ruling “that the indictment is defective does not affect the jurisdiction of the trial court to determine the case presented by the indictment.”

Thus, this Court some time ago departed from Bain's view that indictment defects are “jurisdictional.” Bain has been cited in later cases such as Stirone v. United States, 361 U. S. 212 (1960), and Russell v. United States, 369 U. S. 749 (1962), for the proposition that “an indictment may not be amended except by resubmission to the grand jury, unless the change is merely á matter of form,” id., at 770 (citing Bain, supra). But in each of these cases proper objection had been made in the District Court to the sufficiency of the indictment. We need not retreat from this settled proposition of law decided in Bain to say that the analysis of that issue in terms of “jurisdiction” was mistaken in the light of later cases such as Lamar and Williams. Insofar as it held that a defective indictment deprives a court of jurisdiction, Bain is overruled.

Freed from the view that indictment omissions deprive a court of jurisdiction, we proceed to apply the plain-error test of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b) to respondents’ forfeited claim. See United States v. Olano, 507 U. S. 725, 731 (1993). “Under that test, before an appellate court can correct an error not raised at trial, there must be (1) ‘error,’ (2) that is ‘plain,’ and (3) that ‘affect[s] substantial rights.’ ” Johnson v. United States, 520 U. S. 461, 466-467 (1997) (quoting Olano, supra, at 732). “If all three conditions are met, an appellate court may then exercise its discretion to notice a forfeited error, but only if (4) the error “seriously affect[s] the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” 520 U. S., at 467 (internal quotation marks omit-, ted) (quoting Olano, supra, at 732).

The Government concedes that the indictment’s failure to allege a fact, drug quantity, that increased the statutory maximum sentence rendered respondents’ enhanced sentences erroneous under the reasoning of Apprendi and Jones. The Government also concedes that such error was plain. See Johnson, supra, at 468 (“[Wjhere the law at the time of trial was settled and clearly contrary to the law at the time of appeal[,] it is enough that an error be ‘plain’ at the time of appellate consideration”).

The third inquiry is whether the plain error “affect[ed] substantial rights.” This usually means that the error “must have affected the outcome of the district court proceedings.” Olano, supra, at 734. Respondents argue that an indictment error falls within the “limited class” of “structural errors,” Johnson, supra, at 468-469, that “can be corrected regardless of their effect on the outcome,” Olano, supra, at 735. Respondents cite Silber v. United States, 370 U. S. 717 (1962) (per curiam), and Stirone v. United States, supra, in support of this position. The Government counters by noting that Johnson’s list of structural errors did not include Stirone or Silber, see 520 U. S., at 468-469, and that the defendants in both of these cases preserved their claims at trial.

As in Johnson (see id., at 469), we need not resolve whether respondents satisfy this element of the plain-error inquiry, because even assuming respondents’ substantial rights were affected, the error did not seriously affect the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. The error in Johnson was the District Court’s failure to submit an element of the false statement offense, materiality, to the petit jury. The evidence of materiality, however, was “overwhelming” and “essentially uncontroverted.” Id., at 470. We thus held that there was “no basis for concluding that the error ‘seriously affect[ed] the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.’” Ibid.

The same analysis applies in this case to the omission of drug quantity from the indictment. The evidence that the conspiracy involved at least 50 grams of cocaine base was “overwhelming” and “essentially uncontroverted.” Much of the evidence implicating respondents in the drug conspiracy revealed the conspiracy’s involvement with far more than 50 grams of cocaine base. Baltimore police officers made numerous state arrests and seizures between February 1996 and April 1997 that resulted in the seizure of 795 zip-lock bags and clear bags containing approximately 380 grams of cocaine base. 20 Record 179-244. A federal search of respondent Jovan Powell’s residence resulted in the seizure of 51.3 grams of cocaine base. 32 id., at 18-30. A cooperating co-conspirator testified at trial that he witnessed respondent Hall cook one-quarter of a kilogram of cocaine powder into cocaine base. 22 id., at 208. Another cooperating co-conspirator testified at trial that she was present in a hotel room where the drug operation bagged one kilogram of cocaine base into ziplock bags. 27 id., at 107-108. Surely the grand jury, having found that the conspiracy existed, would have also found that the conspiracy involved at least 50 grams of cocaine base.

Respondents emphasize that the Fifth Amendment grand jury right serves a vital function in providing for a body of citizens that acts as a check on prosecutorial power. No doubt that is true. See, e. g., 3 Story, Commentaries on the Constitution § 1779 (1883), reprinted in 5 The Founders’ Constitution 295 (P. Kurland & R. Lerner eds. 1987). But that is surely no less true of the Sixth Amendment right to a petit jury, which, unlike the grand jury, must find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The important role of the petit jury did not, however, prevent us in Johnson from applying the longstanding rule “that a constitutional right may be forfeited in criminal as well as civil cases by the failure to make timely assertion of the right....” Yakus v. United States, 321 U. S. 414, 444 (1944).

In providing for graduated penalties in 21 U. S. C. § 841(b), Congress intended that defendants, like respondents, involved in large-scale drug operations receive more severe punishment than those committing drug offenses involving lesser quantities. Indeed, the fairness and integrity of the criminal justice system depends on meting out to those inflicting the greatest harm on society the most severe punishments. The real threat then to the “fairness, integrity, and public reputation of judicial proceedings” would be if respondents, despite the overwhelming and uncontroverted evidence that they were involved in a vast drug conspiracy, were to receive a sentence prescribed for those committing less substantial drug offenses because of an error that was never objected to at trial. Cf. Johnson, supra, at 470 (quoting R. Traynor, The Riddle of Harmless Error 50 (1970)).

Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

       In 1889, Congress authorized direct review of capital cases in the Supreme Court. See 25 Stat. 655. In 1891, this right was extended to defendants in all cases involving “infamous crime[s].” 26 Stat. 827; see In re Claasen, 140 U. S. 200 (1891).

         Respondents also argue that even if the indictment defect is not structural error, it did affect their substantial rights because they were sentenced to more than the 20-year maximum that § 841(b) authorizes without regard to drug quantity. The Government responds that the defendants had notice that their sentences could exceed 20 years, and that the grand jury would have found that the conspiracy involved at least 50 grams of cocaine base had the Government sought such an allegation.

       Respondents challenged the presentence reports’ assignment of a base offense level of 38, which is applicable to 1.5 kilograms or more of cocaine base. But they never argued that the conspiracy involved less than 50 grams of cocaine base, which is the relevant quantity for purposes of Apprendi, as that is the threshold quantity for the penalty of life imprisonment in 21 U. S. C. § 841(b)(1)(A).


author: Justice Scalia Justice Kennedy, Justice Souter,

text:
    VERIZON MARYLAND INC. v. PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION OF MARYLAND et al.
    No. 00-1531.
    Argued December 5, 2001 —
    Decided May 20, 2002

      Mark L. Evans argued the cause for petitioner Verizon Maryland Inc. With him on the briefs were Michael K. Kellogg, Sean A. Lev, Aaron M. Panner, William P. Barr, Mark J. Mathis, Michael D. Lowe, and David A. Hill. Barbara McDowell argued the cause for the United States. With her on the briefs were Solicitor General Olson, Acting Assistant Attorney General Katsas, Deputy Solicitor General Wallace, Mark B. Stern, Charles W. Scarborough, and John A. Rogovin.

      Susan Stevens Miller argued the cause and filed a brief for respondent Public Service Commission of Maryland. Paul M. Smith, William M. Hohengarten, Michael B. DeSanctis, Darryl M. Bradford, John J. Hamill, Thomas F. O’Neil III, William Single IV, and Brian J. Leske filed briefs for respondent MCI WorldCom, Inc., et al.

      Together with No. 00-1711, United States v. Public Service Commission of Maryland et al., also on certiorari to the same court.

        Lesley Szanto Friedman, Aidan Synnott, Martha F. Davis, Isabelle Katz Pinzler, Steven R. Shapiro, Karen K. Narasaki, Vincent A. Eng, Herbert Semmel, Marcia D. Greenberger, Dina R. Lassow, and Elliot M. Mincberg filed a brief for the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund et al. as amici curiae urging reversal.
      Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the State of Illinois by James E. Ryan, Attorney General, Joel D. Bertocchi, Solicitor General, A. Benjamin Goldgar and Michael P. Doyle, Assistant Attorneys General, Myra L. Karegianes, John P. Kelliher, and Thomas R. Stan

        ton; and for the Virginia State Corporation Commission by William H. Chambliss.

   Justice Scalia

delivered the opinion of the Court.

These cases present the question whether federal district courts have jurisdiction over a telecommunication carrier’s claim that the order of a state utility commission requiring reciprocal compensation for telephone calls to Internet Service Providers violates federal law.

I

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 (1996 Act or Act), Pub. L. 104-104, 110 Stat. 56, created a new telecommunications regime designed to foster competition in local telephone markets. Toward that end, the Act imposed various obligations on incumbent local-exchange carriers (LECs), including a duty to share their networks with competitors. See 47 U. S. C. § 251(c) (1994 ed., Supp. V). When a new entrant seeks access to a market, the incumbent LEC must “provide . . . interconnection with” the incumbent’s existing network, § 251(c)(2), and the carriers must then establish “reciprocal compensation arrangements” for transporting and terminating the calls placed by each others’ customers, § 251(b)(5). As we have previously described, see AT&T Corp. v. Iowa Utilities Bd., 525 U. S. 366, 371-373 (1999), an incumbent LEC “may negotiate and enter into a binding agreement” with the new entrant “to fulfill the duties” imposed by §§ 251(b) and (c), but “without regard to the standards set forth” in those provisions. §§ 252(a)(1), 251(c)(1). That agreement must be submitted to the state commission for approval, § 252(e)(1), which may reject it if it discriminates against a carrier not a party or is not consistent with “the public interest, convenience, and necessity,” § 252(e)(2)(A).

As required by .the Act, the incumbent LEG in Maryland, petitioner Verizon Maryland Inc., formerly known as Bell Atlantic Maryland, Inc., negotiated an interconnection agreement with competitors, including MFS Intelenet of Maryland, later acquired by respondent MCI WorldCom, Inc. The Maryland Public Service Commission (Commission) approved the agreement. Six months later, Verizon informed WorldCom that it would no longer pay reciprocal compensation for telephone calls made by Verizon’s customers to the local access numbers of Internet Service Providers (ISPs), claiming that ISP traffic was not “local traffic” subject to the reciprocal compensation agreement because ISPs connect customers to distant Web sites. WorldCom disputed Verizon’s claim and filed a complaint with the Commission. The Commission found in favor of WorldCom, ordering Verizon “to timely forward all future interconnection payments owed [WorldCom] for telephone calls placed to an ISP” and to pay WorldCom any reciprocal compensation that it had withheld pending resolution of the dispute. Verizon appealed to a Maryland state court, which affirmed the order.

Subsequently, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a ruling — later vacated by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, see Bell Atlantic Tel. Cos. v. FCC, 206 F. 3d 1 (2000) — which categorized ISP-bound calls as nonlocal for purposes of reciprocal compensation but concluded that, absent a federal compensation mechanism for those calls, state commissions could construe interconnection agreements as requiring reciprocal compensation. Verizon filed a new complaint with the Commission, arguing that the FCC ruling established that Verizon was no longer required to provide reciprocal compensation for ISP traffic. In a 3-to-2 decision, the Commission rejected this contention, concluding that, as a matter of state contract law, WorldCom and Verizon had agreed to treat ISP-bound calls as local traffic subject to reciprocal compensation.

Verizon filed an action in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, citing 47 U. S. C. § 252(e)(6) and 28 U. S. C. § 1331 as the basis for jurisdiction, and naming as defendants the Commission, its individual members in their official capacities, WorldCom, and other competing LECs. In its complaint, Verizon sought declaratory and injunctive relief from the Commission’s order, alleging that the determination that Verizon must pay reciprocal compensation to WorldCom for ISP traffic violated the 1996 Act and the FCC ruling.

The District Court dismissed the action, and a divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed. 240 F. 3d 279 (2001). The Fourth Circuit held that the Commission had not waived its immunity from suit by voluntarily participating in the regulatory scheme set up under the 1996 Act, and that the doctrine of Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123 (1908), does not permit suit against the individual commissioners in their official capacities. It then held that neither 47 U. S. C. § 252(e)(6) nor 28 U. S. C. § 1331 provides a basis for jurisdiction over Verizon’s claims against the private defendants. Both Verizon and the United States, an intervenor below, petitioned this Court for review of the four questions resolved by the Fourth Circuit. Because we had previously granted certiorari in Mathias v. WorldCom Technologies, Inc., 532 U. S. 903 (2001), which raised all but the question whether § 1331 provides a basis for jurisdiction, we granted certiorari only on the §1331 question and set the case for oral argument in tandem with Mathias. 533 U. S. 928 (2001). After oral argument, for reasons explained in our decision in Mathias released today, post, p. 682, we granted certiorari on the remaining three questions presented in these cases. 534 U. S. 1072 (2001).

II

WorldCom, Verizon, and the United States contend that 47 U.S.C. §252(e)(6) and 28 U.S.C. §1331 independently grant federal courts subject-matter jurisdiction to determine whether the Commission’s order requiring that Verizon pay WorldCom reciprocal compensation for ISP-bound calls violates the 1996 Act. Section 252 sets forth procedures relating to formation and commission approval of interconnection agreements, and commission approval and continuing review of interconnection terms and conditions (called “[statements of generally available terms,” § 252(f)) filed by LECs. Section 252(e)(6) provides, in relevant part: “In any case in which a State commission makes a determination under this section, any party aggrieved by such determination may bring an action in an appropriate Federal district court to determine whether the agreement or statement meets the requirements of section 251 of this title and this section.” The determination at issue here is neither the approval or disapproval of a negotiated agreement nor the approval or disapproval of a statement of generally available terms. WorldCom, Verizon, and the United States argue, however, that a state commission’s authority under § 252 implicitly encompasses the authority to interpret and enforce an interconnection agreement that the commission has approved, and that an interpretation or enforcement decision is therefore a “determination under [§ 252]” subject to federal review. Whether the text of § 252(e)(6) can be so construed is a question we need not decide. For we agree with the parties’ alternative contention, that even if § 252(e)(6) does not confer jurisdiction, it at least does not divest the district courts of their authority under 28 U. S. C. § 1331 to review the Commission’s order for compliance with federal law.

Verizon alleged in its complaint that the Commission violated the Act and the FCC ruling when it ordered payment of reciprocal compensation for ISP-bound calls. Verizon sought a declaratory judgment that the Commission’s order was unlawful, and an injunction prohibiting its enforcement. We have no doubt that federal courts have jurisdiction under § 1331 to entertain such a suit. Verizon seeks relief from the Commission’s order “on the ground that such regulation is pre-empted by a federal statute which, by virtue of the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, must prevail,” and its claim “thus presents a federal question which the federal courts have jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1331 to resolve.” Shaw v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 463 U. S. 85, 96, n. 14 (1983).

The Commission contends that since the Act does not create a private cause of action to challenge the Commission’s order, there is no jurisdiction to entertain such a suit. We need express no opinion on the premise of this argument. “It is firmly established in our cases that the absence of a valid (as opposed to arguable) cause of action does not implicate subject-matter jurisdiction, i. e., the courts’ statutory or constitutional power to adjudicate the case.” Steel Co. v. Citizens for Better Environment, 523 U. S. 83, 89 (1998). As we have said, “the district court has jurisdiction if ‘the right of the petitioners to recover under their complaint will be sustained if the Constitution and laws of the United States are given one construction and will be defeated if they are given another,’ unless the claim ‘clearly appears to be immaterial and made solely for the purpose of obtaining jurisdiction or where such a claim is wholly insubstantial and frivolous.’” Ibid, (citations omitted). Here, resolution of Verizon’s claim turns on whether the Act, or an FCC ruling issued thereunder, precludes the Commission from ordering payment of reciprocal compensation, and there is no suggestion that Verizon’s claim is “ ‘immaterial’ ” or “ ‘wholly insubstantial and frivolous.’ ” Ibid.

Verizon’s claim thus falls within 28 U. S. C. § 1331’s general grant of jurisdiction, and contrary to the Fourth Circuit’s conclusion, nothing in 47 U. S. C. § 252(e)(6) purports to strip this jurisdiction. Section 252(e)(6) provides for federal review of an agreement when a state commission “makes a determination under [§ 252].” If this does not include (as WorldCom, Verizon, and the United States claim it does) the interpretation or enforcement of an interconnection agreement, then § 252(e)(6) merely makes some other actions by state commissions reviewable in federal court. This is not enough to eliminate jurisdiction under § 1331. Although the situation is not precisely parallel (in that here the elimination of federal district-court review would not amount to the elimination of all review), we think what we said in Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U. S. 136, 141 (1967), is nonetheless apt: “The mere fact that some acts are made reviewable should not suffice to support an implication of exclusion as to others.” (Internal quotation marks and citation omitted.) And here there is nothing more than that mere fact. Section 252 does not establish a distinctive review mechanism for the commission actions that it covers (the mechanism is the same as § 1331: district-court review), and it does not distinctively limit the substantive relief available. Cf. United States v. Fausto, 484 U. S. 439, 448-449 (1988). Indeed, it does not even mention subject-matter jurisdiction, but reads like the conferral of a private right of action (“[A]ny party aggrieved by such determination may bring an action in an appropriate Federal district court,” § 252(e)(6)). Cf. Steel Co., supra, at 90-91 (even a statutory provision that uses the word “jurisdiction” may not relate to “subject-matter jurisdiction”); see also Davis v. Passman, 442 U. S. 228, 239, n. 18 (1979).

And finally, none of the other provisions of the Act evince any intent to preclude federal review of a commission determination. If anything, they reinforce the conclusion that § 252(e)(6)’s silence on the subject leaves the jurisdictional grant of § 1331 untouched. For where otherwise applicable jurisdiction was meant to be excluded, it was excluded expressly. Section 252(e)(4) provides: “No State court shall have jurisdiction to review the action of a State commission in approving or rejecting an agreement under this section.” In sum, nothing in the Act displays any intent to withdraw federal jurisdiction under § 1331; we will not presume that the statute means what it neither says nor fairly implies.

III

The Commission nonetheless contends that the Eleventh Amendment bars Verizon’s claim against it and its individual commissioners. WorldCom, Verizon, and the United States counter that the Commission is subject to suit because it voluntarily participated in the regulatory regime established by the Act. Whether the Commission waived its immunity is another question we need not decide, because — as the same parties also argue — even absent waiver, Verizon may proceed against the individual commissioners in their official capacities, pursuant to the doctrine of Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123 (1908).

In determining whether the doctrine of Ex parte Young avoids an Eleventh Amendment bar to suit, a court need only conduct a “straightforward inquiry into whether [the] complaint alleges an ongoing violation of federal law and seeks relief properly characterized as prospective.” Idaho v. Coeur d’Alene Tribe of Idaho, 521 U. S. 261, 296 (1997) (O’Connor, J., joined by Scalia and Thomas, JJ., concurring in part and concurring in judgment); see also id., at 298-299 (Souter, J., joined by Stevens, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., dissenting). Here Verizon sought injunctive and declaratory relief, alleging that the Commission’s order requiring payment of reciprocal compensation was preempted by the 1996 Act and an FCC ruling. The prayer for injunctive relief — that state officials be restrained from enforcing an order in contravention of controlling federal law — clearly satisfies our “straightforward inquiry.” We have approved injunction suits against state regulatory commissioners in like contexts. See, e. g., Prentis v. Atlantic Coast Line Co., 211 U. S. 210, 230 (1908) (“[W]hen the rate is fixed a bill against the commission to restrain the members from enforcing it will not be bad ... as a suit against a State, and will be the proper form of remedy”); Alabama Pub. Serv. Comm’n v. Southern R. Co., 341 U. S. 341, 344, n. 4 (1951); McNeill v. Southern R. Co., 202 U. S. 543 (1906); Smyth v. Ames, 169 U. S. 466 (1898); Reagan v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 154 U. S. 362 (1894). Indeed, Ex parte Young itself was a suit against state officials (including state utility commissioners, though only the state attorney general appealed) to enjoin enforcement of a railroad commission’s order requiring a reduction in rates. 209 U. S., at 129. As for Verizon’s prayer for declaratory relief: That, to be sure, seeks a declaration of the past, as well as the future, ineffectiveness of the Commission’s action, so that the past financial liability of private parties may be affected. But no past liability of the State, or of any of its commissioners, is at issue. It does not impose upon the State “a monetary loss resulting from a past breach of a legal duty on the part of the defendant state officials.” Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651, 668 (1974). Insofar as the exposure of the State is concerned, the prayer for declaratory relief adds nothing to the prayer for injunction.

The Fourth Circuit suggested that Verizon’s claim could not be brought under Ex parte Young, because the Commission’s order was probably not inconsistent with federal law after all. 240 F. 3d, at 295-297. The court noted that the FCC ruling relied upon by Verizon does not seem to require compensation for ISP traffic; that the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has vacated the ruling; and that the Commission interpreted the interconnection agreement under state contract-law principles. It may (or may not) be true that the FCC’s since-vacated ruling does not support Verizon’s claim; it may (or may not) also be true that state contract law, and not federal law as Verizon contends, applies to disputes regarding the interpretation of Verizon’s agreement. But the inquiry into whether suit lies under Ex parte Young does not include an analysis of the merits of the claim. See Coeur d'Alene, supra, at 281 ("An allegation of an ongoing violation of federal law ... is ordinarily sufficient” (emphasis added)).

Nor does the 1996 Act display any intent to foreclose jurisdiction under Ex parte Young — as we concluded the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act did in Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, 517 U. S. 44 (1996). There an Indian Tribe sued the State of Florida for violating a duty to negotiate imposed under that Act, 25 U. S. C. § 2710(d)(3). Congress had specified the means to enforce that duty in § 2710(d)(7), a provision “intended ... not only to define, but also to limit significantly, the duty imposed by § 2710(d)(3).” 517 U. S., at 74. The “intricate procedures set forth in that provision” prescribed that a court could issue an order directing the State to negotiate, that it could require the State to submit to mediation, and that it could order that the Secretary of the Interior be notified. Id., at 74-75. We concluded that “this quite modest set of sanctions” displayed an intent not to provide the “more complete and more immediate relief” that would otherwise be available under Ex parte Young. 517 U. S., at 75. Permitting suit under Ex parte Young was thus inconsistent with the “detailed remedial scheme,” 517 U. S., at 74 — and the limited one — that Congress had prescribed to enforce the State’s statutory duty to negotiate. The Commission’s argument that § 252(e)(6) constitutes a detailed and exclusive remedial scheme like the one in Seminole Tribe, implicitly excluding Ex parte Young actions, is without merit. That section provides only that when state commissions make certain “determinations,” an aggrieved party may bring suit in federal court to establish compliance with the requirements of §§251 and 252. Even with regard to the “determinations” that it covers, it places no restriction on the relief a court can award. And it does not even say whom the suit is to be brought against — the state commission, the individual commissioners, or the carriers benefiting from the state commission’s order. The mere fact that Congress has authorized federal courts to review whether the Commission’s action complies with §§251 and 252 does not without more “impose upon the State a liability that is significantly more limited than would be the liability imposed upon the state officer under Ex parte Young.” Seminole Tribe, supra, at 75-76.

* * *

We conclude that 28 U. S. C. § 1331 provides a basis for jurisdiction over Verizon’s claim that the Commission’s order requiring reciprocal compensation for ISP-bound calls is pre-empted by federal law. We also conclude that the doctrine of Ex parte Young permits Verizon’s suit to go forward against the state commissioners in their official capacities. We vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand these cases for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

Justice O’Connor took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases.

Justice Kennedy,

concurring.

For the reasons well stated by the Court, I agree Verizon Maryland Inc. may proceed against the state commissioners in their official capacity under the doctrine of Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123 (1908). When the plaintiff seeks to enjoin a state utility commissioner from enforcing an order alleged to violate federal law, the Eleventh Amendment poses no bar. See Idaho v. Coeur d’Alene Tribe of Idaho, 521 U. S. 261, 271 (1997) (principal opinion of Kennedy, J., joined by Rehnquist, C. J.).

This is unlike the case in Idaho v. Coeur d’Alene Tribe of Idaho, supra, where the plaintiffs tried to use Ex parte Young to divest a State of sovereignty over territory within its boundaries. In such a case, a “ ‘straightforward inquiry,’ ” which the Court endorses here, ante, at 645, proves more complex. In Coeur d’Alene seven Members of this Court described Ex parte Young as requiring nothing more than an allegation of an ongoing violation of federal law and a request for prospective relief; they divided four to three, however, over whether that deceptively simple test had been met.

In my view, our Ex parte Young jurisprudence requires careful consideration of the sovereign interests of the State as well as the obligations of state officials to respect the supremacy of federal law. See Coeur d’Alene, supra, at 267-280 (principal opinion of Kennedy, J., joined by Rehnquist, C. J.). I believe this approach, whether stated in express terms or not, is the path followed in Coeur d’Alene as well as in the many cases preceding it. I also believe it necessary. Were it otherwise, the Eleventh Amendment, and not Ex parte Young, would become the legal fiction.

The complaint in this litigation, however, parallels the very suit permitted by Ex parte Young itself. With this brief explanation, I join the opinion of the Court.

Justice Souter,

with whom Justice Ginsburg and Justice Breyer join,

concurring.

I join the Court’s opinion, Part III of which rests on a ground all of us can agree upon: on the assumption of an Eleventh Amendment bar, relief is available under the doctrine of Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123 (1908). Although that assumption apparently has been made from the start of the litigation, I think it is open to some doubt and so write separately to question whether these cases even implicate the Eleventh Amendment.

While the State of Maryland is the named defendant, it is only a nominal one. Verizon Maryland Inc., the private party “suing” it, does not seek money damages, or the sort of declaratory or injunctive relief that could be had against a private litigant. Nor does Verizon seek an order enjoining the State from enforcing purely state-law rate orders of dubious constitutionality, the relief requested in Ex parte Young itself, id., at 129-131. Instead, Verizon claims that the Maryland Public Service Commission has wrongly decided a question of federal law under a decisional power conferred by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (Act), a power that no person may wield. Verizon accordingly seeks not a simple order of relief running against the state commission, but a different adjudication of a federal question by means of appellate review in Federal District Court, whose jurisdiction to entertain the claim of error the Court today has affirmed. If the District Court should see things Verizon’s way and reverse the state commission qua federal regulator, what dishonor would be done to the dignity of the State, which has accepted congressionally conferred power to decide matters of federal law in the first instance?

One answer might be that even naming the state commission as a defendant in a suit for declaratory and injunc-tive relief in federal court is an unconstitutional indignity. But I do not see how this could be right. At least where the suit does not seek to bar a state authority from applying and enforcing state law, a request for declaratory or in-junctive relief is simply a formality for obtaining a process of review. Cf. 4 K. Davis, Administrative Law Treatise 206 (2d ed. 1983) (“[T]he suit for injunction and declaratory judgment in a district court under 28 U. S. C. § 1331 ... is now always available to reach reviewable [federal] administrative action in absence of a specific statute making some other remedy exclusive”). And as for the nominal position of a State as defendant,'“[i]t must be regarded as a settled doctrine of this court . . . ‘that the question whether a suit is within the prohibition of the 11th Amendment is not always determined by reference to the nominal parties on the record.’ ” In re Ayers, 123 U. S. 443, 487 (1887) (alteration in original) (quoting Poindexter v. Greenhow, 114 U. S. 270, 287 (1885)). If the applicability of the Eleventh Amendment pivots on the formalism that a State is found on the wrong side of the “v.” in the case name of a regulatory appeal, constitutional immunity becomes nothing more than an accident of captioning practice in utility cases reviewed by courts. For that matter, the formal and nominal position of a governmental body in these circumstances is not even the universal practice. While the regulatory commission is generally a nominal defendant when a party appeals in the federal system, this is not the uniform practice among the States, several of which caption utility cases on judicial review in terms of the appealing utility.

The only credible response, which Maryland to its credit advances, is that the State has a strong interest in any case where its adjudication of a federal question is challenged. See Supplemental Brief for Respondents MCI WorldCom, Inc., et al. 21-24. An adverse ruling in one appeal can no doubt affect the state commission’s ruling in future cases. But this is true any time a state court decides a federal question and a successful appeal is made to this Court, and no one thinks that the Eleventh Amendment applies in that instance. See Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 412 (1821) (a writ of error from a state-court decision is not a “suit” under the Eleventh Amendment); McKesson Corp. v. Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco, Fla. Dept. of Business Regulation, 496 U. S. 18, 31 (1990) (“The Eleventh Amendment does not constrain the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court over cases arising from state courts”) (unanimous Court); cf. U. S. Const., Art. VI (“This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States ... shall be the supreme Law of the Land”). Whether an issue comes from a state-agency or a state-court decision, the federal court is reviewing the State’s determination of a question of federal law, and it is neither prudent nor natural to see such review as impugning the dignity of the State or implicating the States’ sovereign immunity in the federal system.

       Section 1.61 of the interconnection agreement provides: ‘“Reciprocal Compensation’ is As Described in the Act, and refers to the payment arrangements that recover costs incurred for the transport and termination of Local Traffic originating on one Party’s network and terminating on the other Party’s network.” In turn, §1.44 defines “‘Local Traffic’” as “traffic that is originated by a Customer of one Party on that Party’s network and terminates to a Customer of the other Party on that other Party’s network, .within a given local calling area, or expanded area service (‘EAS’) area, as defined in [Bell Atlantic’s] effective Customer tariffs. Local Traffic does not include traffic originated or terminated by a commercial mobile radio service carrier.”

       The Fourth Circuit suggested that both Maryland law and the Federal Communications Act of 1934 grant the Commission authority to interpret and enforce interconnection agreements that it approves under §252. 240 F. 3d 279, 304 (2001) (citing 47 U. S. C. § 152(b), and Md. Pub. Util. Cos. Code Ann. §2-113 (1998)). The parties dispute whether it is in fact federal or state law that confers this authority, but no party contends that the Commission lacked jurisdiction to interpret and enforce the agreement.

       The Commission also suggests that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine precludes a federal district court from exercising jurisdiction over Verizon’s claim. See District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U. S. 462 (1983); Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U. S. 413 (1923). The Rooker-Feldman doctrine merely recognizes that 28 U. S. C. § 1331 is a grant of original jurisdiction, and does not authorize district courts to exercise appellate jurisdiction over state-court judgments, which Congress has reserved to this Court, see § 1257(a). The doctrine has no application to judicial review of executive action, including determinations made by a state administrative agency.

       In so doing, I set aside for the moment my continuing conviction that the interpretation of the Eleventh Amendment that a majority of this Court has embraced is fundamentally mistaken. See Alden v. Maine, 527 U. S. 706, 760 (1999) (dissenting opinion); Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, 517 U. S. 44, 100 (1996) (dissenting opinion).

       “The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.” U. S. Const., Amdt. 11.

       Cf. e. g., Board of Trustees of Univ. of Ala. v. Garrett, 531 U. S. 356, 360 (2001) (money damages from the State as employer under Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990); Kimel v. Florida Bd. of Regents, 528 U. S. 62, 66 (2000) (money damages from the State as employer under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967); Alden v. Maine, supra, at 712 (money damages from the State as employer under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 in state court); Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Ed. Expense Bd. v. College Savings Bank, 527 U. S. 627, 633 (1999) (money damages and injunctive and declaratory relief against a State for patent infringement); College Savings Bank v. Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Ed. Expense Bd., 527 U. S. 666, 671 (1999) (same for trademark violations); Seminole Tribe, supra, at 47 (suit to compel State to negotiate in good faith); Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U. S. 1 (1890) (money damages for failure to honor state securities). In Seminole Tribe, a majority of this Court observed “that the relief sought by a plaintiff suing a State is irrelevant to the question whether the suit is barred by the Eleventh Amendment,” 517 U. S., at 58, but this was said in the context of a suit for injunctive relief (to enforce a duty to negotiate) as opposed to money damages. . My point is that conventional relief of both sorts (and declaratory relief) is different in kind from the judicial review of agency action sought in these cases.

       Whether the interpretation of a reciprocal-compensation provision in a privately negotiated interconnection agreement presents a federal issue is a different question which neither the Court nor I address at the present.

       Judicial review of Federal Communications Commission determinations under the Act is committed directly to the Courts of Appeal. 28 U. S. C. §2342(1); 47 U. S. C. § 402(a) (1994 ed.).

       See 5 U. S. C. §§702-703; Fed. Rule App. Proc. 15(a)(2)(B).

       See, e. g., In re Hawaiian Elec. Co., 81 Haw. 459, 918 P. 2d 561 (1996); In re Petition of Interstate Power Co., 416 N. W. 2d 800 (Minn. Ct. App. 1987); Appeal of Campaign for Ratepayers Rights, 145 N. H. 671, 766 A. 2d 702 (2001); In re Petition for Declaratory Ruling of Northwestern Public Serv. Co., 560 N. W. 2d 925 (S. D. 1997); In re Citizens Util. Co., 171 Vt. 447, 769 A. 2d 19 (2000).

       The Fourth Circuit obliquely questioned the strength of the State’s interest, noting that “under Maryland law, it is not necessary for the State commission, much less the individual commissioners, to be a party to an appeal for State-court review of its determinations.” Bell Atlantic Md., Inc. v. MCI WorldCom, Inc., 240 F. 3d 279, 295 (2001). But while the Maryland statute which the Fourth Circuit cited, Md. Pub. Util. Cos. Code Ann. §3-204(d) (1998), does provide that “[t]he Commission may,” not must, “be a party to an appeal,” the Maryland courts have specified that the Public Service Commission is one of certain agencies “ ‘the functions of which are so identified with the execution of some definite public policy as the representative of the State, that their participation in litigation affecting their decisions is regarded by the Legislature as essential to the adequate protection of the State’s interests.’ ” Calvert County Planning Comm’n v. Howlin Realty Management, Inc., 364 Md. 301, 315, 772 A. 2d 1209, 1216-1217 (2001) (quoting Zoning Appeals Board v. McKinney, 174 Md. 551, 561, 199 A. 540, 545 (1938)).

       A possible ground for distinction is that the Supreme Court reviews state-court decisions while a federal district court initially reviews state-commission decisions under the Act. The argument would be that the Constitution requires any controversy in which a State’s dignitary interests are implicated to be decided by this Court, and no other federal court, as a sign of respect for the State’s sovereignty. See Farquhar v. Georgia (C. C. D. Ga. 1791) (Iredell, J.), reprinted in 5 Documentary History of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1789-1800, pp. 148-154 (M. Marcus ed. 1994) (“It may also fairly be presumed that the several States thought it important to stipulate that so awful [and] important a Trial [to which a State is party] should not be cognizable by any Court but the Supreme”). But this position has long been rejected and is inconsistent with the doctrine of congressional abrogation, which presumes that States may be sued in federal district court in the first instance when Congress properly so provides, see Seminole Tribe, 517 U. S., at 55.