Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman

465 U.S. 89, 104 S. Ct. 900, 79 L. Ed. 2d 67, 1984 U.S. LEXIS 4, 52 U.S.L.W. 4155

• Court: Supreme Court of the United States
• Decided: January 23, 1984
• Docket: 81-2101
• Status: Published

Opinions

Justice Powell

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case presents the question whether a federal court may award injunctive relief against state officials on the basis of state law.

I — t

This litigation, here for the second time, concerns the conditions of care at petitioner Pennhurst State School and Hospital, a Pennsylvania institution for the care of the mentally retarded. See Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U. S. 1 (1981). Although the litigation’s history is set forth in detail in our prior opinion, see id., at 5-10, it is necessary for purposes of this decision to review that history.

This suit originally was brought in 1974 by respondent Terri Lee Halderman, a resident of Pennhurst, in the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Ultimately, plaintiffs included a class consisting of all persons who were or might become residents of Pennhurst; the Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Citizens (PARC); and the United States. Defendants were Pennhurst and various Pennhurst officials; the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare and several of its officials; and various county commissioners, county mental retardation administrators, and other officials of five Pennsylvania counties surrounding Penn-hurst. Respondents’ amended complaint charged that conditions at Pennhurst violated the class members’ rights under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments; §504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 87 Stat. 394, 29 U. S. C. § 794; the Developmental^ Disabled Assistance and Bill of Rights Act, 89 Stat. 496, 42 U. S. C. §6001 et seqand the Pennsylvania Mental Health and Mental Retardation Act of 1966 (MH/MR Act), Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 50, §§4101-4704 (Purdon 1969 and Supp. 1983-1984). Both damages and injunctive relief were sought.

In 1977, following a lengthy trial, the District Court rendered its decision. Halderman v. Pennhurst State School and Hospital, 446 F. Supp. 1295. As noted in our prior opinion, the court’s findings were undisputed: “Conditions at Pennhurst are not only dangerous, with the residents often physically abused or drugged by staff members, but also inadequate for the ‘habilitation’ of the retarded. Indeed, the court found that the physicial, intellectual, and emotional skills of some residents have deteriorated at Pennhurst.” 451 U. S., at 7 (footnote omitted). The District Court held that these conditions violated each resident’s right to “minimally adequate habilitation” under the Due Process Clause and the MH/MR Act, see 446 F. Supp., at 1314-1318, 1322-1323; “freedom from harm” under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, see id., at 1320-1321; and “nondiscriminatory habilitation” under the Equal Protection Clause and § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, see id., at 1321-1324. Furthermore, the court found that “due process demands that if a state undertakes the habilitation of a retarded person, it must do so in the least restrictive setting consistent with that individual’s habilitative needs.” Id., at 1319 (emphasis added). After concluding that the large size of Pennhurst prevented it from providing the necessary habilitation in the least restrictive environment, the court ordered that “immediate steps be taken to remove the retarded residents from Pennhurst.” Id., at 1325. Petitioners were ordered “to provide suitable community living arrangements” for the class members, id., at 1326, and the court appointed a Special Master “with the power and duty to plan, organize, direct, supervise and monitor the implementation of this and any further Orders of the Court.” Ibid.1

The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed most of the District Court’s judgment. Halderman v. Pennhurst State School and Hospital, 612 F. 2d 84 (1979) (en banc). It agreed that respondents had a right to habilitation in the least restrictive environment, but it grounded this right solely on the “bill of rights” provision in the Developmentally Disabled Assistance and Bill of Rights Act, 42 U. S. C. § 6010. See 612 F. 2d, at 95-100, 104-107. The court did not consider the constitutional issues or § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and while it affirmed the District Court’s holding that the MH/MR Act provides a right to adequate habilitation, see id., at 100-103, the court did not decide whether that state right encompassed a right to treatment in the least restrictive setting.

On the question of remedy, the Court of Appeals affirmed except as to the District Court’s order that Pennhurst be closed. The court observed that some patients would be unable to adjust to life outside an institution, and it determined that none of the legal provisions relied on by respondents precluded institutionalization. Id., at 114-115. It therefore remanded for “individual determinations by the [District Court], or by the Special Master, as to the appropriateness of an improved Pennhurst for each such patient,” guided by “a presumption in favor of placing individuals in [community living arrangements].” Ibid.2

On remand the District Court established detailed procedures for determining the proper residential placement for each patient. A team consisting of the patient, his parents or guardian, and his case manager must establish an individual habilitation plan providing for habilitation of the patient in a designated community living arrangement. The plan is subject to review by the Special Master. A second master, called the Hearing Master, is available to conduct hearings, upon request by the resident, his parents, or his advocate, on the question whether the services of Pennhurst would be more beneficial to the resident than the community living arrangement provided in the resident’s plan. The Hearing Master then determines where the patient should reside, subject to possible review by the District Court. See App. 123a-134a (Order of Apr. 24, 1980).³

This Court reversed the judgment of the Court of Appeals, finding that 42 U. S. C. § 6010 did not create any substantive rights. Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U. S. 1 (1981). We remanded the case to the Court of Appeals to determine if the remedial order could be supported on the basis of state law, the Constitution, or § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. See id., at 31.⁴ We also remanded for consideration of whether any relief was available under other provisions of the Developmentally Disabled Assistance and Bill of Rights Act. See id., at 27-30 (discussing 42 U. S. C. §§ 6011(a), 6063(b)(5) (1976 ed., Supp. V)).

On remand the Court of Appeals affirmed its prior judgment in its entirety. 673 F. 2d 647 (1982) (en banc). It determined that in a recent decision the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania had “spoken definitively” in holding that the MH/MR Act required the State to adopt the “least restrictive environment” approach for the care of the mentally retarded. Id., at 651 (citing In re Schmidt, 494 Pa. 86, 429 A. 2d 631 (1981)). The Court of Appeals concluded that this state statute fully supported its prior judgment, and therefore did not reach the remaining issues of federal law. It also rejected petitioners’ argument that the Eleventh Amendment barred a federal court from considering this pendent state-law claim. The court noted that the Amendment did not bar a federal court from granting prospective injunctive relief against state officials on the basis of federal claims, see 673 F. 2d, at 656 (citing Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123 (1908)), and concluded that the same result obtained with respect to a pendent state-law claim. It reasoned that because Siler v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 213 U. S. 175 (1909), an important case in the development of the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction, also involved state officials, “there cannot be ... an Eleventh Amendment exception to that rule.” 673 F. 2d, at 658.⁵ Finally, the court rejected petitioners’ argument that it should have abstained from deciding the state-law claim under principles of comity, see id,., at 659-660, and refused to consider petitioners’ objections to the District Court’s use of a Special Master, see id., at 651, and n. 10. Three judges dissented in part, arguing that under principles of federalism and comity the establishment of a. Special Master to supervise compliance was an abuse of discretion. See id., at 662 (Seitz, C. J., joined by Hunter, J., dissenting in part); ibid. (Garth, J., concurring in part and dissenting as to relief). See also id., at 661 (Aldisert, J., concurring) (seriously questioning the propriety of the order appointing the Special Master, but concluding that a retroactive reversal of that order would be meaningless).⁶

We granted certiorari, 457 U. S. 1131 (1982), and now reverse and remand.

II

Petitioners raise three challenges to the judgment of the Court of Appeals: (i) the Eleventh Amendment prohibited the District Court from ordering state officials to conform their conduct to state law; (ii) the doctrine of comity prohibited the District Court from issuing its injunctive relief; and (iii) the District Court abused its discretion in appointing two Masters to supervise the decisions of state officials in implementing state law. We need not reach the latter two issues, for we find the Eleventh Amendment challenge dispositive.

A

Article III, § 2, of the Constitution provides that the federal judicial power extends, inter alia, to controversies “between a State and Citizens of another State.” Relying on this language, this Court in 1793 assumed original jurisdiction over a suit brought by a citizen of South Carolina against the State of Georgia. Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 Dall. 419 (1793). The decision “created such a shock of surprise that the Eleventh Amendment was at once proposed and adopted.” Monaco v. Mississippi, 292 U. S. 313, 325 (1934). The Amendment provides:

“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.”

The Amendment’s language overruled the particular result in Chisholm, but this Court has recognized that its greater significance lies in its affirmation that the fundamental principle of sovereign immunity limits the grant of judicial authority in Art. III. Thus, in Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U. S. 1 (1890), the Court held that, despite the limited terms of the Eleventh Amendment, a federal court could not entertain a suit brought by a citizen against his own State. After reviewing the constitutional debates concerning the scope of Art. Ill, the Court determined that federal jurisdiction over suits against unconsenting States “was not contemplated by the Constitution when establishing the judicial power of the United States.” Id., at 15. See Monaco v. Mississippi, supra, at 322-323.⁷ In short, the principle of sovereign immunity is a constitutional limitation on the federal judicial power established in Art. Ill:

“That a State may not be sued without its consent is a fundamental rule of jurisprudence having so important a bearing upon the construction of the Constitution of the United States that it has become established by repeated decisions of this court that the entire judicial power granted by the Constitution does not embrace authority to entertain a suit brought by private parties against a State without consent given: not one brought by citizens of another State, or by citizens or subjects of a foreign State, because of the Eleventh Amendment; and not even one brought by its own citizens, because of the fundamental rule of which the Amendment is but an exemplification.” Ex parte State of New York, 256 U. S. 490, 497 (1921) (emphasis added).⁸

A sovereign’s immunity may be waived, and the Court consistently has held that a State may consent to suit against it in federal court. See, e. g., Clark v. Barnard, 108 U. S. 436, 447 (1883). We have insisted, however, that the State’s consent be unequivocally expressed. See, e. g., Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651, 673 (1974). Similarly, although Congress has power with respect to the rights protected by the Fourteenth Amendment to abrogate the Eleventh Amendment immunity, see Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, 427 U. S. 445 (1976), we have required an unequivocal expression of congressional intent to “overturn the constitutionally guaranteed immunity of the several States.” Quern v. Jordan, 440 U. S. 332, 342 (1979) (holding that 42 U. S. C. § 1983 does not override States’ Eleventh Amendment immunity). Our reluctance to infer that a State’s immunity from suit in the federal courts has been negated stems from recognition of the vital role of the doctrine of sovereign immunity in our federal system. A State’s constitutional interest in immunity encompasses not merely whether it may be sued, but where it may be sued.⁹ As Justice Marshall well has noted, “[b]e-cause of the problems of federalism inherent in making one sovereign appear against its will in the courts of the other, a restriction upon the exercise of the federal judicial power has long been considered to be appropriate in a case such as this.” Employees v. Missouri Dept. of Public Health and Welfare, 411 U. S. 279, 294 (1973) (concurring in result).¹⁰ Accordingly, in deciding this case we must be guided by “[t]he principles of federalism that inform Eleventh Amendment doctrine.” Hutto v. Finney, 437 U. S. 678, 691 (1978).

B

This Court’s decisions thus establish that “an unconsenting State is immune from suits brought in federal courts by her own citizens as well as by citizens of another state.” Employees, supra, at 280. There may be a question, however, whether a particular suit in fact is a suit against a State. It is clear, of course, that in the absence of consent a suit in which the State or one of its agencies or departments is named as the defendant is proscribed by the Eleventh Amendment. See, e. g., Florida Dept. of Health and Rehabilitative Services v. Florida Nursing Home Assn., 450 U. S. 147 (1981) (per curiam); Alabama v. Pugh, 438 U. S. 781 (1978) (per curiam). This jurisdictional bar applies regardless of the nature of the relief sought. See, e. g., Missouri v. Fiske, 290 U. S. 18, 27 (1933) (“Expressly applying to suits in equity as well as at law, the Amendment necessarily embraces demands for the enforcement of equitable rights and the prosecution of equitable remedies when these are asserted and prosecuted by an individual against a State”).

When the suit is brought only against state officials, a question arises as to whether that suit is a suit against the State itself. Although prior decisions of this Court have not been entirely consistent on this issue, certain principles are well established. The Eleventh Amendment bars a suit against state officials when “the state is the real, substantial party in interest.” Ford Motor Co. v. Department of Treasury of Indiana, 323 U. S. 459, 464 (1945). See, e. g., In re Ayers, 123 U. S. 443, 487-492 (1887); Louisiana v. Jumel, 107 U. S. 711, 720-723, 727-728 (1883). Thus, “[t]he general rule is that relief sought nominally against an officer is in fact against the sovereign if the decree would operate against the latter.” Hawaii v. Gordon, 373 U. S. 57, 58 (1963) (per curiam).11 And, as when the State itself is named as the defendant, a suit against state officials that is in fact a suit against a State is barred regardless of whether it seeks damages or injunctive relief. See Cory v. White, 457 U. S. 85, 91 (1982).

The Court has recognized an important exception to this general rule: a suit challenging the constitutionality of a state official’s action is not one against the State. This was the holding in Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123 (1908), in which a federal court enjoined the Attorney General of the State of Minnesota from bringing suit to enforce a state statute that allegedly violated the Fourteenth Amendment. This Court held that the Eleventh Amendment did not prohibit issuance of this injunction. The theory of the case was that an unconstitutional enactment is “void” and therefore does not “impart to [the officer] any immunity from responsibility to the supreme authority of the United States.” Id., at 160. Since the State could not authorize the action, the officer was “stripped of his official or representative character and [was] subjected in his person to the consequences of his individual conduct.” Ibid.

While the rule permitting suits alleging conduct contrary to “the supreme authority of the United States” has survived, the theory of Young has not been provided an expansive interpretation. Thus, in Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651 (1974), the Court emphasized that the Eleventh Amendment bars some forms of injunctive relief against state officials for violation of federal law. Id., at 666-667. In particular, Edelman held that when a plaintiff sues a state official alleging a violation of federal law, the federal court may award an injunction that governs the official’s future conduct, but not one that awards retroactive monetary relief. Under the theory of Young, such a suit would not be one against the State since the federal-law allegation would strip the state officer of his official authority. N evertheless, retroactive relief was barred by the Eleventh Amendment.

HH HH I — I

With these principles in mind, we now turn to the question whether the claim that petitioners violated state law in carrying out their official duties at Pennhurst is one against the State and therefore barred by the Eleventh Amendment. Respondents advance two principal arguments in support of the judgment below.¹² First, they contend that under the doctrine of Edelman v. Jordan, supra, the suit is not against the State because the courts below ordered only prospective injunctive relief. Second, they assert that the state-law claim properly was decided under the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction. Respondents rely on decisions of this Court awarding relief against state officials on the basis of a pendent state-law claim. See, e. g., Siler v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 213 U. S., at 193.

We first address the contention that respondents’ state-law claim is not barred by the Eleventh Amendment because it seeks only prospective relief as defined in Edelman v. Jordan, supra. The Court of Appeals held that if the judgment below rested on federal law, it could be entered against petitioner state officials under the doctrine established in Edel-man and Young even though the prospective financial burden was substantial and ongoing.¹³ See 673 F. 2d, at 656. The court assumed, and respondents assert, that this reasoning applies as well when the official acts in violation of state law. This argument misconstrues the basis of the doctrine established in Young and Edelman.

As discussed above, the injunction in Young was justified, notwithstanding the obvious impact on the State itself, on the view that sovereign immunity does not apply because an official who acts unconstitutionally is “stripped of his official or representative character,” Young, 209 U. S., at 160. This rationale, of course, created the “well-recognized irony” that an official’s unconstitutional conduct constitutes state action under the Fourteenth Amendment but not the Eleventh Amendment. Florida Dept. of State v. Treasure Salvors, Inc., 458 U. S. 670, 685 (1982) (opinion of Stevens, J.). Nonetheless, the Young doctrine has been accepted as necessary to permit the federal courts to vindicate federal rights and hold state officials responsible to “the supreme authority of the United States.” Young, supra, at 160. As Justice Brennan has observed, “Ex parte Young was the culmination of efforts by this Court to harmonize the principles of the Eleventh Amendment with the effective supremacy of rights and powers secured elsewhere in the Constitution.” Perez v. Ledesma, 401 U. S. 82, 106 (1971) (concurring in part and dissenting in part). Our decisions repeatedly have emphasized that the Young doctrine rests on the need to promote the vindication of federal rights. See, e. g., Quern v. Jordan, 440 U. S., at 337; Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U. S. 232, 237 (1974); Georgia Railroad & Banking Co. v. Redwine, 342 U. S. 299, 304 (1952).

The Court also has recognized, however, that the need to promote the supremacy of federal law must be accommodated to the constitutional immunity of the States. This is the significance of Edelman v. Jordan, supra. We recognized that the prospective relief authorized by Young “has permitted the Civil War Amendments to the Constitution to serve as a sword, rather than merely a shield, for those whom they were designed to protect.” 415 U. S., at 664. But we declined to extend the fiction of Young to encompass retroactive relief, for to do so would effectively eliminate the constitutional immunity of the States. Accordingly, we concluded that although the difference between permissible and impermissible relief “will not in many instances be that between day and night,” 415 U. S., at 667, an award of retroactive relief necessarily “ ‘fall[s] afoul of the Eleventh Amendment if that basic constitutional provision is to be conceived of as having any present force.”’ Id., at 665 (quoting Rothstein v. Wyman, 467 P. 2d 226, 237 (CA2 1972) (McGowan, J., sitting by designation), cert. denied, 411 U. S. 921 (1973)). In sum, Edelman’s distinction between prospective and retroactive relief fulfills the underlying purpose of Ex parte Young while at the same time preserving to an important degree the constitutional immunity of the States.

This need to reconcile competing interests is wholly absent, however, when a plaintiff alleges that a state official has violated state law. In such a case the entire basis for the doctrine of Young and Edelman disappears. A federal court’s grant of relief against state officials on the basis of state law, whether prospective or retroactive, does not vindicate the supreme authority of federal law. On the contrary, it is difficult to think of a greater intrusion on state sovereignty than when a federal court instructs state officials on how to conform their conduct to state law. Such a result conflicts directly with the principles of federalism that underlie the Eleventh Amendment. We conclude that Young and Edelman are inapplicable in a suit against state officials on the basis of state law.

The contrary view of Justice Stevens’ dissent rests on fiction, is wrong on the law, and, most important, would emasculate the Eleventh Amendment.¹⁴ Under his view, an allegation that official conduct is contrary to a state statute would suffice to override the State’s protection under that Amendment. The theory is that such conduct is contrary to the official’s “instructions,” and thus ultra vires his authority. Accordingly, official action based on a reasonable interpretation of any statute might, if the interpretation turned out to be erroneous,¹⁵ provide the basis for injunctive relief against the actors in their official capacities. In this case, where officials of a major state department, clearly acting within the scope of their authority, were found not to have improved conditions in a state institution adequately under state law, the dissent’s result would be that the State itself has forfeited its constitutionally provided immunity.

The theory is out of touch with reality. The dissent does not dispute that the general criterion for determining when a suit is in fact against the sovereign is the effect of the relief sought. See supra, at 101; post, at 146, n. 29. According to the dissent, the relief sought and ordered here — which in effect was that a major state institution be closed and smaller state institutions be created and expansively funded — did not operate against the State. This view would make the law a pretense. No other court or judge in the 10-year history of this litigation has advanced this theory. And the dissent’s underlying view that the named defendants here were acting beyond and contrary to their authority cannot be reconciled with reality — or with the record. The District Court in this case held that the individual defendants “acted in the utmost good faith . . . within the sphere of their official responsibilities,” and therefore were entitled to immunity from damages. 446 F. Supp., at 1324 (emphasis added). The named defendants had nothing to gain personally from their conduct; they were not found to have acted willfully or even negligently. See ibid. The court expressly noted that the individual defendants “apparently took every means available to them to reduce the incidents of abuse and injury, but were constantly faced with staff shortages.” Ibid. It also found “that the individual defendants are dedicated professionals in the field of retardation who were given very little with which to accomplish the habilitation of the retarded at Pennhurst.” Ibid.16 As a result, all the relief ordered by the courts below was institutional and official in character. To the extent there was a violation of state law in this case, it is a case of the State itself not fulfilling its legislative promises.¹⁷

The dissent bases its view on numerous cases from the turn of the century and earlier. These cases do not provide the support the dissent claims to find. Many are simply miscited. For example, with perhaps one exception,¹⁸ none of its Eleventh Amendment cases can be said to hold that injunctive relief could be ordered against state officials for failing to carry out their duties under state statutes.¹⁹ And the federal sovereign immunity cases the dissent relies on for analogy, while far from uniform, make clear that suit may not be predicated on violations of state statutes that command purely discretionary duties.²⁰ Since it cannot be doubted that the statutes at issue here gave petitioners broad discretion in operating Pennhurst, see n. 11, supra; see also 446 F. Supp., at 1324, the conduct alleged in this case would not be ultra vires even under the standards of the dissent’s cases.²¹

Thus, while there is language in the early cases that advances the authority-stripping theory advocated by the dissent, this theory had never been pressed as far as Justice Stevens would do in this case. And when the expansive approach of the dissent was advanced, this Court plainly and explicitly rejected it. In Larson v. Domestic & Foreign Commerce Corp., 337 U. S. 682 (1949), the Court was faced with the argument that an allegation that a Government official committed a tort sufficed to distinguish the official from the sovereign. Therefore, the argument went, a suit for an injunction to remedy the injury would not be against the sovereign. The Court rejected the argument, noting that it would make the doctrine of sovereign immunity superfluous. A plaintiff would need only to “claim an invasion of his legal rights” in order to override sovereign immunity. Id., at 693. In the Court’s view, the argument “confuse[d] the doctrine of sovereign immunity with the requirement that a plaintiff state a cause of action.” Id., at 692-693. The dissent’s theory suffers a like confusion.²² Under the dissent’s view, a plaintiff would need only to claim a denial of rights protected or provided by statute in order to override sovereign immunity. Except in rare cases it would make the constitutional doctrine of sovereign immunity a nullity.

The crucial element of the dissent’s theory was also the plaintiff’s central contention in Larson. It is that “[a] sovereign, like any other principal, cannot authorize its agent to violate the law,” so that when the agent does so he cannot be acting for the sovereign. Post, at 153; see also post, at 142, 148-149, 158; cf. Larson, supra, at 693-694 (“It is argued .. . that the commission of a tort cannot be authorized by the sovereign. . . . It is on this contention that the respondent’s position fundamentally rests . . .”). It is a view of agency law that the Court in Larson explicitly rejected.²³ Larson thus made clear that, at least insofar as injunctive relief is sought, an error of law by state officers acting in their official capacities will not suffice to override the sovereign immunity of the State where the relief effectively is against it. 337 U. S., at 690, 695.²⁴ Any resulting disadvantage to the plaintiff was “outweigh[ed] ” by “the necessity of permitting the Government to carry out its functions unhampered by direct judicial intervention.” Id., at 704. If anything, this public need is even greater when questions of federalism are involved. See supra, at 99-100.²⁵

The dissent in Larson made many of the arguments advanced by Justice Stevens’ dissent today, and asserted that many of the same cases were being overruled or ignored. See 337 U. S., at 723-728 (Frankfurter, J., dissenting). Those arguments were rejected, and the cases supporting them are moribund. Since Larson was decided in 1949,²⁶ no opinion by any Member of this Court has cited the cases on which the dissent primarily relies for a proposition as broad as the language the dissent quotes. Many if not most of these cases have not been relied upon in an Eleventh Amendment context at all. Those that have been so cited have been relied upon only for propositions with which no one today quarrels.²⁷ The plain fact is that the dissent’s broad theory, if it ever was accepted to the full extent to which it is now pressed, has not been the law for at least a generation.

The reason is obvious. Under the dissent’s view of the ultra vires doctrine, the Eleventh Amendment would have force only in the rare case in which a plaintiff foolishly attempts to sue the State in its own name, or where he cannot produce some state statute that has been violated to his asserted injury. Thus, the ultra vires doctrine, a narrow and questionable exception, would swallow the general rule that a suit is against the State if the relief will run against it. That result gives the dissent no pause presumably because of its view that the Eleventh Amendment and sovereign immunity “ ‘undoubtedly ru[n] counter to modern democratic notions of the moral responsibility of the State.’” Post, at 164, n. 48 (quoting Great Northern Life Insurance Co. v. Read, 322 U. S. 47, 59 (1944) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting)). This argument has not been adopted by this Court. See Great Northern Life Insurance Co. v. Read, supra, at 51 (“Efforts to force, through suits against officials, performance of promises by a state collide directly with the necessity that a sovereign must be free from judicial compulsion in the carrying out of its policies within the limits of the Constitution”); Larson, 337 U. S., at 704 (“The Government, as representative of the community as a whole, cannot be stopped in its tracks . . .”). Moreover, the argument substantially misses the point with respect to Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity. As Justice Marshall has observed, the Eleventh Amendment’s restriction on the federal judicial power is based in large part on “the problems of federalism inherent in making one sovereign appear against its will in the courts of the other.” Employees v. Missouri Dept. of Public Health and Welfare, 411 U. S., at 294 (concurring in result). The dissent totally rejects the Eleventh Amendment’s basis in federalism.

C

The reasoning of our recent decisions on sovereign immunity thus leads to the conclusion that a federal suit against state officials on the basis of state law contravenes the Eleventh Amendment when — as here — the relief sought and ordered has an impact directly on the State itself. In reaching a contrary conclusion, the Court of Appeals relied principally on a separate line of cases dealing with pendent jurisdiction. The crucial point for the Court of Appeals was that this Court has granted relief against state officials on the basis of a pendent state-law claim. See 673 F. 2d, at 657-658. We therefore must consider the relationship between pendent jurisdiction and the Eleventh Amendment.

This Court long has held generally that when a federal court obtains jurisdiction over a federal claim, it may adjudicate other related claims over which the court otherwise would not have jurisdiction. See, e. g., Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U. S. 715, 726 (1966); Osborn v. Bank of United States, 9 Wheat. 738, 819-823 (1824). The Court also has held that a federal court may resolve a case solely on the basis of a pendent state-law claim, see Siler, 213 U. S., at 192-193, and that in fact the court usually should do so in order to avoid federal constitutional questions, see id., at 193; Ashwander v. TV A, 297 U. S. 288, 347 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring) (“[I]f a case can be decided on either of two grounds, one involving a constitutional question, the other a question of statutory construction or general law, the Court will decide only the latter”). But pendent jurisdiction is a judge-made doctrine inferred from the general language of Art. III. The question presented is whether this doctrine may be viewed as displacing the explicit limitation on federal jurisdiction contained in the Eleventh Amendment.

As the Court of Appeals noted, in Siler and subsequent cases concerning pendent jurisdiction, relief was granted against state officials on the basis of state-law claims that were pendent to federal constitutional claims. In none of these cases, however, did the Court so much as mention the Eleventh Amendment in connection with the state-law claim. Rather, the Court appears to have assumed that once jurisdiction was established over the federal-law claim, the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction would establish power to hear the state-law claims as well. The Court has not addressed whether that doctrine has a different scope when applied to suits against the State. This is illustrated by Greene v. Louisville & Interurban R. Co., 244 U. S. 499 (1917), in which the plaintiff railroads sued state officials, alleging that certain tax assessments were excessive under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court first rejected the officials’ argument that the Eleventh Amendment barred the federal constitutional claim. It held that Ex parte Young applied to all allegations challenging the constitutionality of official action, regardless of whether the state statute under which the officials purported to act was constitutional or unconstitutional. See 244 U. S., at 507. Having determined that the Eleventh Amendment did not deprive the federal court of jurisdiction over the Fourteenth Amendment question, the Court declared that the court’s jurisdiction extended “to the determination of all questions involved in the case, including questions of state law, irrespective of the disposition that may be made of the federal question, or whether it be found necessary to decide it at all.” Id., at 508. The case then was decided solely on state-law grounds. Accord, Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Greene, 244 U. S. 522 (1917).²⁸

These cases thus did not directly confront the question before us. “[W]hen questions of jurisdiction have been passed on in prior decisions sub silentio, this Court has never considered itself bound when a subsequent case finally brings the jurisdictional issue before us.” Hagans v. Lavine, 415 U. S. 528, 533, n. 5 (1974).²⁹ We therefore view the question as an open one.

As noted, the implicit view of these cases seems to have been that once jurisdiction is established on the basis of a federal question, no further Eleventh Amendment inquiry is necessary with respect to other claims raised in the case. This is an erroneous view and contrary to the principles established in our Eleventh Amendment decisions. “The Eleventh Amendment is an explicit limitation of the judicial power of the United States.” Missouri v. Fiske, 290 U. S., at 25. It deprives a federal court of power to decide certain claims against States that otherwise would be within the scope of Art. Ill’s grant of jurisdiction. For example, if a lawsuit against state officials under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 alleges a constitutional claim, the federal court is barred from awarding damages against the state treasury even though the claim arises under the Constitution. See Quern v. Jordan, 440 U. S. 332 (1979). Similarly, if a § 1983 action alleging a constitutional claim is brought directly against a State, the Eleventh Amendment bars a federal court from granting any relief on that claim. See Alabama v. Pugh, 438 U. S. 781 (1978) (per curiam). The Amendment thus is a specific constitutional bar against hearing even federal claims that otherwise would be within the jurisdiction of the federal courts.³⁰

This constitutional bar applies to pendent claims as well. As noted above, pendent jurisdiction is a judge-made doctrine of expediency and efficiency derived from the general Art. Ill language conferring power to hear all “cases” arising under federal law or between diverse parties. See Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U. S., at 725. See also Hagans v. Lavine, supra, at 545 (terming pendent jurisdiction “a doctrine of discretion”). The Eleventh Amendment should not be construed to apply with less force to this implied form of jurisdiction than it does to the explicitly granted power to hear federal claims. The history of the adoption and development of the Amendment, see supra, at 97-100, confirms that it is an independent limitation on all exercises of Art. Ill power: “the entire judicial power granted by the Constitution does not embrace authority to entertain a suit brought by private parties against a State without consent given,” Ex parte State of New York, 256 U. S., at 497. If we were to hold otherwise, a federal court could award damages against a State on the basis of a pendent claim. Our decision in Edelman v. Jordan makes clear that pendent jurisdiction does not permit such an evasion of the immunity guaranteed by the Eleventh Amendment. We there held that “the District Court was correct in exercising pendent jurisdiction over [plaintiffs’] statutory claim,” 415 U. S., at 653, n. 1, but then concluded that the Eleventh Amendment barred an award of retroactive relief on the basis of that pendent claim. Id., at 678.

In sum, contrary to the view implicit in decisions such as Greene v. Louisville & Interurban R. Co., 244 U. S. 499 (1917), neither pendent jurisdiction nor any other basis of jurisdiction may override the Eleventh Amendment.³¹ A federal court must examine each claim in a case to see if the court’s jurisdiction over that claim is barred by the Eleventh Amendment. We concluded above that a claim that state officials violated state law in carrying out their official responsibilities is a claim against the State that is protected by the Eleventh Amendment. See supra, at 106. We now hold that this principle applies as well to state-law claims brought into federal court under pendent jurisdiction.

D

Respondents urge that application of the Eleventh Amendment to pendent state-law claims will have a disruptive effect on litigation against state officials. They argue that the “considerations of judicial economy, convenience, and fairness to litigants” that underlie pendent jurisdiction, see Gibbs, supra, at 726, counsel against a result that may cause litigants to split causes of action between state and federal courts. They also contend that the policy of avoiding unnecessary constitutional decisions will be contravened if plaintiffs choose to forgo their state-law claims and sue only in federal court or, alternatively, that the policy of Ex parte Young will be hindered if plaintiffs choose to forgo their right to a federal forum and bring all of their claims in state court.

It may be that applying the Eleventh Amendment to pendent claims results in federal claims being brought in state court, or in bifurcation of claims. That is not uncommon in this area. Under Edelman v. Jordan, supra, a suit against state officials for retroactive monetary relief, whether based on federal or state law, must be brought in state court. Challenges to the validity of state tax systems under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 also must be brought in state court. Fair Assessment in Real Estate Assn., Inc. v. McNary, 454 U. S. 100 (1981). Under the abstention doctrine, unclear issues of state law commonly are split off and referred to the state courts.³²

In any case, the answer to respondents’ assertions is that such considerations of policy cannot override the constitutional limitation on the authority of the federal judiciary to adjudicate suits against a State. See Missouri v. Fiske, 290 U. S., at 25-26 (“Considerations of convenience open no avenue of escape from the [Amendment’s] restriction”).³³ That a litigant’s choice of forum is reduced “has long been understood to be a part of the tension inherent in our system of federalism.” Employees v. Missouri Dept. of Public Health and Welfare, 411 U. S., at 298 (Marshall, J., concurring in result).

IV

Respondents contend that, regardless of the applicability of the Eleventh Amendment to their state claims against petitioner state officials, the judgment may still be upheld against petitioner county officials. We are not persuaded. Even assuming that these officials are not immune from suit challenging their actions under the MH/MR Act,³⁴ it is clear that without the injunction against the state institutions and officials in this case, an order entered on state-law grounds necessarily would be limited. The relief substantially concerns Pennhurst, an arm of the State that is operated by state officials. Moreover, funding for the county mental retardation programs comes almost entirely from the State, see Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 50, §§4507-4509 (Purdon 1969 and Supp. 1983-1984), and the costs of the Masters have been borne by the State, see 446 F. Supp., at 1327. Finally, the MH/MR Act contemplates that the state and county officials will cooperate in operating mental retardation programs. See In re Schmidt, 494 Pa., at 95-96, 429 A. 2d, at 635-636. In short, the present judgment could not be sustained on the basis of the state-law obligations of petitioner county officials. Indeed, any relief granted against the county officials on the basis of the state statute would be partial and incomplete at best. Such an ineffective enforcement of state law would not appear to serve the purposes of efficiency, convenience, and fairness that must inform the exercise of pendent jurisdiction.

V

The Court of Appeals upheld the judgment of the District Court solely on the basis of Pennsylvania’s MH/MR Act. We hold that these federal courts lacked jurisdiction to enjoin petitioner state institutions and state officials on the basis of this state law. The District Court also rested its decision on the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments and § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. See supra, at 93. On remand the Court of Appeals may consider to what extent, if any, the judgment may be sustained on these bases.³⁵ The court also may consider whether relief may be granted to respondents under the Developmentally Disabled Assistance and Bill of Rights Act, 42 U. S. C. §§6011, 6063 (1976 ed. and Supp. V). 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.

1 The District Court determined that the individual defendants had acted in good faith and therefore were immune from the damages claims. 446 F. Supp., at 1324.

2 In a companion case, the Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court’s denial of the Pennhurst Parents-Staff Association’s motion to intervene for purposes of appeal, finding the denial harmless error. See Halderman v. Pennhurst State School and Hospital, 612 F. 2d 131 (1979) (en banc). The Association subsequently was granted leave to intervene and is a petitioner in this Court.

3 On July 1, 1981, Pennsylvania enacted an appropriations bill providing that only $35,000 would be paid for the Masters’ expenses for the fiscal year July 1981 to June 1982. The District Court held the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare and its Secretary in contempt, and imposed a fine of $10,000 per day. Pennsylvania paid the fines, and the contempt was purged on January 8, 1982. On appeal the Court of Appeals affirmed the contempt order. Halderman v. Pennhurst State School and Hospital, 673 F. 2d 628 (1982), cert. pending, No. 81-2363.

4 Three Justices dissented from the Court’s construction of the Act, but concluded that the District Court should not have adopted the “far-reaching remedy” of appointing “a Special Master to decide which of the Pennhurst inmates should remain and which should be moved to community-based facilities. . . . [T]he court should not have assumed the task of managing Pennhurst . . . .” 451 U. S., at 54 (White J., joined by Brennan and Marshall, JJ., dissenting in part).

5 The Court of Appeals also noted that “the United States is an intervening plaintiff . . . against which even the state itself cannot successfully plead the Eleventh Amendment as a bar to jurisdiction,” and that “the counties, even as juridical entities, do not fall within the coverage of the Eleventh Amendment. Against those defendants even money damages may be awarded.” 673 F. 2d, at 656 (citation omitted).

As Justice Brennan notes in his dissent, post, at 126, Judge Gibbons has expanded on his views of the Eleventh Amendment in a recent law review article. Gibbons, The Eleventh Amendment and State Sovereign Immunity: A Reinterpretation, 83 Colum. L. Rev. 1889 (1983). Judge Gibbons was the author of both the first and second opinions by the Court of Appeals in this case.

6 The Office of the Special Master was abolished in December 1982. See App. 220a (Order of Aug. 12, 1982). The Hearing Master remains in operation.

7 See Employees v. Missouri Dept. of Public Health and Welfare, 411 U. S. 279, 291-292 (1973) (Marshall, J., concurring in result) (The Eleventh Amendment “clarified] the intent of the Framers concerning the reach of the federal judicial power” and “restore[d] the original understanding” that States could not be made unwilling defendants in federal court). See also Nevada v. Hall, 440 U. S. 410, 430-431 (1979) (Blackmun, J., dissenting); id., at 437 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting).

8 The limitation deprives federal courts of any jurisdiction to entertain such claims, and thus may be raised at any point in a proceeding. “The Eleventh Amendment declares a policy and sets forth an explicit limitation on federal judicial power of such compelling force that this Court will consider the issue arising under this Amendment. . . even though urged for the first time in this Court.” Ford Motor Co. v. Department of Treasury of Indiana, 323 U. S. 459, 467 (1945).

9 For this reason, the Court consistently has held that a State’s waiver of sovereign immunity in its own courts is not a waiver of the Eleventh Amendment immunity in the federal courts. See, e. g., Florida Dept. of Health and Rehabilitative Services v. Florida Nursing Home Assn., 450 U. S. 147, 150 (1981) (per curiam). “[I]t is not consonant with our dual system for the federal courts ... to read the consent to embrace federal as well as state courts. ... [A] clear declaration of the state’s intention to submit its fiscal problems to other courts than those of its own creation must be found.” Great Northern Life Insurance Co. v. Read, 322 U. S. 47, 54 (1944).

10 See Nevada v. Hall, 440 U. S., at 418-419 (States were “vitally interested” in whether they would be subject to suit in the federal courts, and the debates about state immunity focused on the question of federal judicial power). Cf. id., at 430-431 (Blackmun, J., dissenting) (sovereign immunity is “a guarantee that is implied as an essential component of federalism” and is “sufficiently fundamental to our federal structure to have implicit constitutional dimension”); id., at 437 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting) (“[T]he States that ratified the Eleventh Amendment thought that they were putting an end to the possibility of individual States as unconsenting defendants in foreign jurisdictions”).

11 “The general rule is that a suit is against the sovereign if ‘the judgment sought would expend itself on the public treasury or domain, or interfere with the public administration,’ or if the effect of the judgment would be ‘to restrain the Government from acting, or to compel it to act.’ ” Dugan v. Rank, 372 U. S. 609, 620 (1963) (citations omitted).

Respondents do not dispute that the relief sought and awarded below operated against the State in each of the foregoing respects. They suggest, however, that the suit here should not be considered to be against the State for the purposes of the Eleventh Amendment because, they say, petitioners were acting ultra vires their authority. Respondents rely largely on Florida Dept. of State v. Treasure Salvors, Inc., 458 U. S. 670 (1982), which in turn was founded upon Larson v. Domestic & Foreign Commerce Corp., 337 U. S. 682 (1949). These cases provide no support for this argument. These and other modern cases make clear that a state officer may be said to act ultra vires only when he acts “without any authority whatever.” Treasure Salvors, 458 U. S., at 697 (opinion of Stevens, J.); accord, id., at 716 (White, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part) (test is whether there was no “colorable basis for the exercise of authority by state officials”). As the Court in Larson explained, an ultra vires claim rests on “the officer’s lack of delegated power. A claim of error in the exercise of that power is therefore not sufficient.” Larson, supra, at 690. Petitioners’ actions in operating this mental health institution plainly were not beyond their delegated authority in this sense. The MH/MR Act gave them broad discretion to provide “adequate” mental health services. Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 50, §4201(1) (Purdon 1969). The essence of respondents’ claim is that petitioners have not provided such services adequately.

In his dissent, Justice Stevens advances a far broader — and unprecedented — version of the ultra vires doctrine, which we discuss infra, at 106-117.

12 We reject respondents’ additional contention that Pennsylvania has waived its immunity from suit in federal court. At the time the suit was filed, suits against Pennsylvania were permitted only where expressly authorized by the legislature, see, e. g., Freach v. Commonwealth, 471 Pa. 558, 370 A. 2d 1163 (1977), and respondents have not referred us to any provision expressly waiving Pennsylvania’s Eleventh Amendment immunity. The State now has a statute governing sovereign immunity, including an express preservation of its immunity from suit in federal court: “Federal courts. — Nothing contained in this subchapter shall be construed to waive the immunity of the Commonwealth from suit in Federal courts guaranteed by the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.” 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 8521(b) (1980).

We also do not agree with respondents that the presence of the United States as a plaintiff in this case removes the Eleventh Amendment from consideration. Although the Eleventh Amendment does not bar the United States from suing a State in federal court, see, e. g., Monaco v. Mississippi, 292 U. S. 313, 329 (1934), the United States’ presence in the case for any purpose does not eliminate the State’s immunity for all purposes. For example, the fact that the federal court could award injunctive relief to the United States on federal constitutional claims would not mean that the court could order the State to pay damages to other plaintiffs. In any case, we think it clear that the United States does not have standing to assert the state-law claims of third parties. For these reasons, the applicability of the Eleventh Amendment to respondents’ state-law claim is unaffected by the United States’ participation in the case.

13 We do not decide whether the District Court would have jurisdiction under this reasoning to grant prospective relief on the basis of federal law, but we note that the scope of any such relief would be constrained by principles of comity and federalism. “Where, as here, the exercise of authority by state officials is attacked, federal courts must be constantly mindful of the ‘special delicacy of the adjustment to be preserved between federal equitable power and State administration of its own law.’” Rizzo v. Goode, 423 U. S. 362, 378 (1976) (quoting Stefanelli v. Minard, 342 U. S. 117, 120 (1951)).

14 We are prompted to respond at some length to Justice Stevens’ 41-page dissent in part by his broad charge that “the Court repudiates at least 28 cases,” post, at 127. The decisions the dissent relies upon simply do not support this sweeping characterization. See nn. 19, 20, and 21, infra.

15 In this case, for example, the court below rested its finding that state law required habilitation in the least restrictive environment on dicta in In re Schmidt, 494 Pa. 86, 429 A. 2d 631 (1981). That decision was not issued until seven years after this suit was filed, and four years after trial ended.

16 This part of the court’s findings and judgment was not appealed. See Halderman v. Pennhurst State School and Hospital, 612 F. 2d 84, 90, n. 4 (1979). See also 446 F. Supp., at 1303 (“On the whole, the staff at ' Pennhurst appears to be dedicated and trying hard to cope with the inadequacies of the institution”).

The parties defendant in this suit were not all individuals. They included as well the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare, a major department of the State itself; and the Pennhurst State School and Hospital, a state institution. The dissent apparently is arguing that the defendants as a group — including both the state institutions, and state and county officials — were acting ultra vires. Since the institutions were only said to have violated the law through the individual defendants, the District Court’s findings, never since questioned by any court, plainly exonerate all the defendants from the dissent’s claim that they acted beyond the scope of their authority.

A truth of which the dissent’s theoretical argument seems unaware is the plight of many if not most of the mental institutions in our country. As the District Court in this case found: “History is replete with misunderstanding and mistreatment of the retarded.” Id., at 1299. Accord, Message from President Kennedy Relative to Mental Illness and Mental Retardation, H. R. Doc. No. 58, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., 13 (1963) (“We as a Nation have long neglected the mentally ill and the mentally retarded”). It is common knowledge that “insane asylums,” as they were known until the middle of this century, usually were underfunded and understaffed. It is not easy to persuade competent people to work in these institutions, particularly well-trained professionals. Physical facilities, due to consistent underfunding by state legislatures, have been grossly inadequate — especially in light of advanced knowledge and techniques for the treatment of the mentally ill. See generally id., at 2, 4; The President’s Committee on Mental Retardation, MR 68: The Edge of Change 11-13 (1968); President’s Committee on Mental Retardation, Changing Patterns in Residential Services for the Mentally Retarded 1-57 (R. Kugel & W. Wolfensberger eds. 1969); R. Scheerenberger, A History of Mental Retardation 240-243 (1983). Only recently have States commenced to move to correct widespread deplorable conditions. The responsibility, as the District Court recognized after a protracted trial, has rested on the State itself.

17 The dissent appears to be confused about our argument here. See post, at 138-139. It is of course true, as the dissent says, that the finding below that petitioners acted in good faith and therefore were immune from damages does not affect whether an injunction might be issued against them by a court possessed of jurisdiction. The point is that the courts below did not have jurisdiction because the relief ordered so plainly ran against the State. No one questions that the petitioners in operating Pennhurst were acting in their official capacity. Nor can it be questioned that the judgments under review commanded action that could be taken by petitioners only in their official capacity — and, of course, only if the State provided the necessary funding. It is evident that the dissent would vest in federal courts authority, acting solely under state law, to ignore the sovereignty of the States that the Eleventh Amendment was adopted to protect. Article III confers no jurisdiction on this Court to strip an explicit Amendment of the Constitution of its substantive meaning.

Contrary to the dissent’s view, see post, at 150, an injunction based on federal law stands on very different footing, particularly in light of the Civil War Amendments. As we have explained, in such cases this Court is vested with the constitutional duty to vindicate “the supreme authority of the United States,” Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123, 160 (1908). There is no corresponding mandate to enforce state law.

18 See Rolston v. Missouri Fund Commissioners, 120 U. S. 390 (1887). In Rolston, however, the state officials were ordered to comply with “a plain ministerial duty,” see Great Northern Life Insurance Co. v. Read, 322 U. S., at 51, a far cry from this case, see n. 20, infra.

19 The cases are collected in n. 50 of the dissent, post, at 165-166. Several of the cases do not rest on an Eleventh Amendment holding at all. For example, federal jurisdiction in fact was held to be lacking in Martin v. Lankford, 245 U. S. 547 (1918), because of lack of diversity. A fair reading of South Carolina v. Wesley, 155 U. S. 542 (1895), and the cases it cites, makes clear that the ruling there was on the purely procedural point that the party pressing the appeal was not a party to the proceeding. In two other eases the allegation was that a state officer or agency had acted unconstitutionally, rather than merely contrary to state law. Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co. v. O’Connor, 223 U. S. 280 (1912); Hopkins v. Clemson Agricultural College, 221 U. S. 636 (1911). In Johnson v. Lankford, 245 U. S. 541 (1918), the relief sought was not injunctive relief but money damages against the individual officer. See n. 21, infra. None of these cases can be said to be overruled by our holding today. As noted infra, at 118, the Greene cases do not discuss the Eleventh Amendment in connection with the state-law claim.

Tindal v. Wesley, 167 U. S. 204 (1897), and Scully v. Bird, 209 U. S. 481 (1908), are more closely analogous cases. In both of these old cases, however, the allegation was that the defendants had committed common-law torts, not, as here, that they had failed to carry out affirmative duties assigned to them by statute. See Tindal, supra, at 221 (distinguishing suits brought “to enforce the” discharge by the defendants of any specific duty enjoined by the State”); Tr. of Record in Tindal v. Wesley, O. T. 1896, No. 231, p. 3 (complaint alleged that defendants had “wrongfully entered into said premises and ousted the plaintiff... to the damage of the plaintiff ten thousand dollars”); Scully, supra, at 483 (allegation was that defendant had “injuriously affect[ed] the reputation and sale of [plaintiff’s] products”). Tort cases suph as these were explicitly overruled in Larson v. Domestic & Foreign Commerce Corp., 337 U. S. 682 (1949). See infra, at 111-114.

20 See, e. g., Philadelphia Co. v. Stimson, 223 U. S. 605, 620 (1912) (“The complainant did not ask the court to interfere with the official discretion of the Secretary of War, but challenged his authority to do the things of which complaint was made”); Santa Fe Pacific R. Co. v. Fall, 259 U. S. 197, 198-199 (1922) (same); see also Kendall v. Stokes, 3 How. 87, 98 (1845) (“[A] public officer is not liable to an action if he falls into error in a case where the act to be done is not merely a ministerial one, but is one in relation to which it is his duty to exercise judgment and discretion; even although an individual may suffer by his mistake”); Noble v. Union River Logging R. Co., 147 U. S. 165, 171-172 (1893); Belknap v. Schild, 161 U. S. 10, 18 (1896) (under Eleventh Amendment, injunctive relief is permitted where officer commits a tort that is “contrary to a plain official duty requiring no exercise of discretion”); Wells v. Roper, 246 U. S. 335, 338 (1918); Larson v. Domestic & Foreign Commerce Corp., 337 U. S., at 695 (suit challenging “incorrect decision as to law or fact” is barred “if the officer making the decision was empowered to do so”); id., at 715 (Frankfurter, J., dissenting) (noting that cases involve orders to comply with nondiscretionary duties). The opinions make clear that the question of discretion went to sovereign immunity, and not to the court’s mandamus powers generally. See, e. g., Philadelphia Co., supra, at 618-620. The rationale appears to be that discretionary duties have a greater impact on the sovereign because they “brin[g] the operation of governmental machinery into play.” Larson, supra, at 715 (Frankfurter, J., dissenting).

21 In any event, as with the Eleventh Amendment cases, see n. 19, supra, the dissent also is wrong to say that the federal sovereign immunity cases it cites post, at 166, n. 50, are today overruled. Many of them were actions for damages in tort against the individual officer. Little v. Barreme, 2 Cranch 170 (1804); Wise v. Withers, 3 Cranch 331 (1806); Mitchell v. Harmony, 13 How. 115 (1852); Bates v. Clark, 95 U. S. 204 (1877); Belknap v. Schild, 161 U. S. 10 (1896). In Belknap the Court drew a careful distinction between such actions and suits in which the relief would run more directly against the State. Id., at 18. The Court disallowed injunctive relief against the officers on this basis. Id., at 23-25. Contrary to the view of the dissent, post, at 135, n. 10, nothing in our opinion touches these cases. The Court in Larson similarly distinguished between cases seeking money damages against the individual officer in tort, and those seeking in-junctive relief against the officer in his official capacity. It held that the latter sought relief against the sovereign, while the former might not. 337 U. S., at 687-688, and nn. 7, 8.

There is language in other cases that suggests they were actions alleging torts, not statutory violations. See Philadelphia Co. v. Stimson, supra, at 623; Sloan Shipyards Corp. v. United States Shipping Bd. Emergency Fleet Corp., 258 U. S. 549, 568 (1922); Land v. Dollar, 330 U. S. 731, 736 (1947). The remainder clearly distinguish eases (like the present one) involving statutes that command discretionary duties. See n. 20, supra. In any case, the Court in Larson explicitly limited the precedential value of all of these cases. See Malone v. Bowdoin, 369 U. S. 643, 646, and n. 6 (1962).

22 In fact, as the dissent itself states, the argument in Larson that an allegation of tortious activity overrides sovereign immunity is essentially the same as the dissent’s argument that an allegation of conduct contrary to statute overrides sovereign immunity. See post, at 158. The result in each case — as the Court in Larson recognized — turns on whether the defendant state official was empowered to do what he did, i. e., whether, even if he acted erroneously, it was action within the scope of his authority. See Larson, 337 U. S., at 685 (controversy on merits concerned whether officer had interpreted Government contract correctly); id., at 695; id., at 716-717 (Frankfurter, J., dissenting) (in cases alleging a tort, the “official seeks to screen himself behind the sovereign”); id., at 721-722. What the dissent fails to note is that the Court in Larson explicitly rejected the view that the dissent here also advances, which is “that an officer given the power to make decisions is only given the power to make correct decisions.” Id., at 695. The Court in Larson made crystal clear that an officer might make errors and still be acting within the scope of his authority. Ibid. (There can be no question that the defendants here were “given the power to make decisions” about the operation of Pennhurst. See n. 11, supra.) The dissent’s view that state officers “have no discretion to commit a tort,” post, at 132, n. 7, cannot be reconciled with the plain holding of Larson.

23 “It has been said, in a very special sense, that, as a matter of agency law, a principal may never lawfully authorize the commission of a tort by his agent. But that statement, in its usual context, is only a way of saying that an agent’s liability for torts committed by him cannot be avoided by pleading the direction or authorization of his principal. The agent is himself liable whether or not he has been authorized or even directed to commit the tort. This, of course, does not mean that the principal is not liable nor that the tortious action may not be regarded as the action of the principal.” 337 U. S., at 694 (footnote omitted).

24 The Larson Court noted that a similar argument “was at one time advanced in connection with corporate agents, in an effort to avoid corporate liability for torts, but was decisively rejected.” Ibid. See 10 W. Fletcher, Cyclopedia of the Law of Private Corporations § 4877, p. 350 (rev. ed. 1978) (a corporation is liable for torts committed by its agent within the scope of his authority even though the “act was contrary to or in violation of the instructions or orders given by it to the offending agent”); id., §4959 (same as to crimes).

The dissent’s strained interpretation of Larson, post, at 153-155, simply ignores the language that the dissent itself quotes: “It is important to note that in [ultra vires] cases the relief can be granted, without impleading the sovereign, only because of the officer’s lack of delegated power. A claim of error in the exercise of that power is therefore not sufficient.” 337 U. S., at 689-690.

25 As we have discussed supra, at 102-103, Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651 (1974), also shows that the broad ultra vires theory enunciated in Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123 (1908), and in some of the cases quoted by the dissent has been discarded. In Edelman, although the state officers were alleged to be acting contrary to law, and therefore should have been “stripped of their authority” under the theory of the dissent, we held the action to be barred by the Eleventh Amendment. The dissent attempts to distinguish Edelman on the ground that the retroactive relief there, unlike injunctive relief, does not run only against the agent. Post, at 146, n. 29. To say that injunctive relief against state officials acting in their official capacity does not run against the State is to resort to the fictions that characterize the dissent’s theories. Unlike the English sovereign perhaps, an American State can act only through its officials. It is true that the Court in Edelman recognized that retroactive relief often, or at least sometimes, has a greater impact on the state treasury than does injunctive relief, see 415 U. S., at 666, n. 11, but there was no suggestion that damages alone were thought to run against the State while injunctive relief did not.

We have noted that the authority-stripping theory of Young is a fiction that has been narrowly construed. In this light, it may well be wondered what principled basis there is to the ultra vires doctrine as it was set forth in Larson and Florida Dept. of State v. Treasure Salvors, Inc., 458 U. S. 670 (1982). That doctrine excepts from the Eleventh Amendment bar suits against officers acting in their official capacities but without any statutory authority, even though the relief would operate against the State. At bottom, the doctrine is based on the fiction of the Young opinion. The dissent’s method is merely to take this fiction to its extreme. While the dissent’s result may be logical, in the sense that it is difficult to draw principled lines short of that end, its view would virtually eliminate the constitutional doctrine of sovereign immunity. It is a result from which the Court in Larson wisely recoiled. We do so again today. For present purposes, however, we do no more than question the continued vitality of the ultra vires doctrine in the Eleventh Amendment context. We hold only that to the extent the doctrine is consistent with the analysis of this opinion, it is a very narrow exception that will allow suit only under the standards set forth in n. 11, supra.

26 The dissent appears to believe that Larson is consistent with all prior law. See post, at 153. This view ignores the fact that the Larson Court itself understood that it was required to “resolve [a] conflict in doctrine.” 337 U. S., at 701. The Court since has recognized that Larson represented a watershed in the law of sovereign immunity. In Malone v. Bowdoin, 369 U. S. 643 (1962), Justice Stewart’s opinion for the Court observed that “to reconcile completely all the decisions of the Court in this field prior to 1949 would be a Procrustean task.” Id., at 646. His opinion continued:

“The Court’s 1949 Larson decision makes it unnecessary, however, to undertake that task here. For in Larson the Court, aware that it was called upon to ‘resolve the conflict in doctrine’ . . . , thoroughly reviewed the many prior decisions, and made an informed and carefully considered choice between the seemingly conflicting precedents.” Ibid.

The Court included many of the cases upon which the dissent relies in its list of cases that were rejected by Larson. See 369 U. S., at 646, n. 6.

27 E. g., Rolston v. Missouri Fund Commissioners, 120 U. S. 390 (1887) (never cited); Scully v. Bird, 209 U. S. 481 (1908) (never cited); Hopkins v. Clemson Agricultural College, 221 U. S. 636 (1911) (never cited); Johnson v. Lankford, 245 U. S. 541 (1918) (never cited); Land v. Dollar, 330 U. S. 731 (1947) (cited only for proposition that judgment that would expend itself on public treasury or interfere with public administration is a suit against the United States); Cunningham v. Macon & Brunswick R. Co., 109 U. S. 446 (1883) (cited only for proposition that a suit alleging unconstitutional conduct is not barred by the Eleventh Amendment, and that State cannot be sued without its consent); Poindexter v. Greenhow, 114 U. S. 270 (1885) (unconstitutional-conduct suit is not suit against State); Reagan v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co., 154 U. S. 362 (1894) (same). Prior to Florida Dept. of State v. Treasure Salvors, Inc., supra, Tindal v. Wesley, 167 U. S. 204 (1897), had been cited only for the proposition that a suit alleging unconstitutional conduct is not barred by the Eleventh Amendment. The plurality opinion in Treasure Salvors discussed Tindal at some length, 458 U. S., at 685-688, but noted that the rule of Tindal “was clarified in Larson." 458 U. S., at 688; see also id., at 715, n. 13 (White, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part).

As noted, n. 26, supra, some of these cases were also cited — and rejected — in Malone v. Bowdoin, supra, at 646, n. 6.

28 The ease was argued in the same way. The Eleventh Amendment argument in the briefs is confined to the federal constitutional claims. See, e. g., Brief for Louisville & Nashville R. Co., O. T. 1916, Nos. 778, 779, pp. 15-38 (jurisdiction over federal claims); id., at 38-39 (pendent jurisdiction over state claims). Indeed the State’s brief somewhat curiously closes with a concession that the federal courts had jurisdiction. Brief for State Board and Officers, O. T. 1916, Nos. 778, 779, p. 189; see Reply Brief, O. T. 1916, Nos. 778, 779, p. 2 (pointing out concession). Thus, while the State’s position on the Court’s jurisdiction over the federal claims is somewhat unclear, the State never argued that there might not be jurisdiction over the local-law claims if the Court found jurisdiction over the federal question in the case.

Nor do any of the other pendent-jurisdiction cases cited in Justice Stevens’ dissent, post, at 166, n. 52, discuss the Eleventh Amendment in connection with the state-law claims. Moreover, since Larson was decided in 1949, making clear that mere violations of state law would not override the Eleventh Amendment, these cases have been cited only for the proposition that, as a general matter, a federal court should decide a case on state-law grounds where possible to avoid a federal constitutional question. Nothing in our decision is meant to cast doubt on the desirability of applying the Siler principle in cases where the federal court has jurisdiction to decide the state-law issues.

29 See Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S., at 671 (“Having now had an opportunity to more fully consider the Eleventh Amendment issue after briefing and argument, we disapprove the Eleventh Amendment holdings of [certain prior] cases to the extent that they are inconsistent with our holding today”).

30 See, e. g., Monaco v. Mississippi, 292 U. S., at 322 (“[Although a case may arise under the Constitution and laws of the United States, the judicial power does not extend to it if the suit is sought to be prosecuted against a State, without her consent, by one of her own citizens”); Missouri v. Fiske, 290 U. S. 18, 25-26 (1933).

31 See Missouri v. Fiske, supra, at 27 (“This is not less a suit against the State because the bill is ancillary and supplemental”).

32 Moreover, allowing claims against state officials based on state law to be brought in the federal courts does not necessarily foster the policies of “judicial economy, convenience and fairness to litigants,” Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U. S. 715, 726 (1966), on which pendent jurisdiction is founded. For example, when a federal decision on state law is obtained, the federal court’s construction often is uncertain and ephemeral. In cases of ongoing oversight of a state program' that may extend over years, as in this ease, the federal intrusion is likely to be extensive. Duplication of effort, inconvenience, and uncertainty may well result. See, e. g., Burford v. Sun Oil Co., 319 U. S. 315, 327 (1943) (“Delay, misunderstanding of local law, and needless federal conflict with the state policy, are the inevitable product of this double [1 e., federal-state] system of review”). This case is an example. Here, the federal courts effectively have been undertaking to operate a major state institution based on inferences drawn from dicta in a state-court opinion not decided until four years after the suit was begun. The state court has had no opportunity to review the federal courts’ construction of its opinion, or their choice of remedies. The only sure escape from an erroneous interpretation of state law is presumably the rather cumbersome route of legislation.

Waste and delay may also result from abstention, which often is called for when state law is unclear, see Baggett v. Bullitt, 377 U. S. 360, 378-379 (1964) (“abstention operates to require piecemeal adjudication in many courts, thereby delaying ultimate adjudication on the merits for an undue length of time”) (citations omitted), or from dismissals on the basis of comity, which has special force when relief is sought on state-law grounds, see Gibbs, supra, at 726; Hawks v. Hamill, 288 U. S. 52, 61 (1933).

33 Cf. Aldinger v. Howard, 427 U. S. 1, 14-15 (1976) (Although “considerations of judicial economy” would be served by permitting pendent-party jurisdiction, “the addition of a completely new party would run counter to the well-established principle that federal courts, as opposed to state trial courts of general jurisdiction, are courts of limited jurisdiction marked out by Congress”).

34 We have held that the Eleventh Amendment does not apply to “counties and similar municipal corporations.” Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle, 429 U. S. 274, 280 (1977); see Lincoln County v. Luning, 133 U. S. 529, 530 (1890). At the same time, we have applied the Amendment to bar relief against county officials “in order to protect the state treasury from liability that would have had essentially the same practical consequences as a judgment against the State itself.” Lake Country Estates, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 440 U. S. 391, 401 (1979). See, e. g., Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651 (1974) (Eleventh Amendment bars suit against state and county officials for retroactive award of welfare benefits). The Courts of Appeals are in general agreement that a suit against officials of a county or other governmental entity is barred if the relief obtained runs against the State. See, e. g., Moore v. Tangipahoa Parish School Board, 594 F. 2d 489, 493 (CA5 1979); Carey v. Quern, 588 F. 2d 230, 233-234 (CA7 1978); Incarcerated Men of Allen County Jail v. Fair, 507 (CA6 1974); Harris v. Tooele County School District, 471 F. 2d 218, 220 (CA10 1973). Given that the actions of the county commissioners and mental-health administrators are dependent on funding from the State, it may be that relief granted against these county officials, when exercising their functions under the MH/MR Act, effectively runs against the State. Cf. Farr v. Chesney, 441 F. Supp. 127, 130-132 (MD Pa. 1978) (holding that Pennsylvania county commissioners, acting as members of the board of the county office of mental health and retardation, may not be sued for backpay under the Eleventh Amendment). We need not decide this issue in light of our disposition above.

35 On the Fourteenth Amendment issue, the court should consider Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U. S. 307 (1982), a decision that was not available when the District Court issued its decision.