Cite as: 513 U. S. 30 (1994)
Opinion of the Court
owned by one State. Time-bar rejection by a federal court of a federal statutory claim that federal prescription would have rendered timely, had the case been brought in state court, becomes comprehensible, the District Court explained, once it is recognized that " 'the Eleventh Amendment does not apply in state courts.' " Hess, 809 F. Supp., at 1183-1184 (quoting Hilton, 502 U. S., at 205); see 809 F. Supp., at 1185, n. 16.
Consolidating Hess and Walsh on appeal, the Third Circuit
summarily affirmed the District Court's judgments. 8 F. 3d 811 (1993) (table).
B
The Port Authority, whose Eleventh Amendment immunity is at issue in these cases, was created in 1921, when Congress, pursuant to the Constitution's Interstate Compact Clause,4 consented to a compact between the Authority's parent States. 42 Stat. 174. Through the bistate compact, New York and New Jersey sought to achieve "a better coordination of the terminal, transportation and other facilities of commerce in, about and through the port of New York." N. J. Stat. Ann. § 32:1-1 (West 1990); N. Y. Unconsol. Law § 6401 (McKinney 1979). The compact grants the Port Authority power to
"purchase, construct, lease and/or operate any terminal or transportation facility within [the Port of New York D]istrict; and to make charges for the use thereof; and for any of such purposes to own, hold, lease and/or operate real or personal property, to borrow money and secure the same by bonds or by mortgages upon any property held or to be held by it." N. J. Stat. Ann. § 32:1-7
4 Article I, § 10, cl. 3, of the Constitution provides: "No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay."
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