80
Opinion of the Court
mission to appeal from the denial of its motion for judgment on the pleadings.2
On the interlocutory appeal, the Alabama Supreme Court reversed. 682 So. 2d 29 (1996). Relying on its earlier opinion in Carter v. Birmingham, 444 So. 2d 373 (1983), the court held that the state Act, including its allowance of punitive damages only, governed petitioners' potential recovery on their § 1983 claims. The court remanded "for further proceedings consistent with [its] opinion." 682 So. 2d, at 31. Dissenting Justices Houston and Cook would have affirmed the trial court's ruling.
We granted certiorari to resolve the following question: "Whether, when a decedent's death is alleged to have resulted from a deprivation of federal rights occurring in Alabama, the Alabama Wrongful Death Act, Ala. Code § 6-5-410 (1993), governs the recovery by the representative of the decedent's estate under 42 U. S. C. § 1983?" 520 U. S. 1154 (1997). In its brief on the merits, respondent for the first time raised a nonwaivable impediment: The City asserted that we lack jurisdiction to review the interlocutory order of the Alabama Supreme Court. We agree, and we now dismiss the writ of certiorari as improvidently granted.
II
From the earliest days of our judiciary, Congress has vested in this Court authority to review federal-question decisions made by state courts. For just as long, Congress has limited that power to cases in which the State's judgment is final. See Judiciary Act of 1789, § 25, 1 Stat. 85. The cur-2 The courts invoked Alabama Rule of Appellate Procedure 5(a), which allows a party to petition the Alabama Supreme Court for an appeal from an interlocutory order where the trial judge certifies that the order "involves a controlling question of law as to which there is substantial ground for difference of opinion, that an immediate appeal from the order would materially advance the ultimate termination of the litigation and that the appeal would avoid protracted and expensive litigation."
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