Cite as: 524 U. S. 381 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
courts for purposes of removal. . . . Nothing in the jurisdictional statutes suggests that the presence of related state law claims somehow alters the fact that [the] complaints, by virtue of their federal claims, were 'civil actions' within the federal courts' 'original jurisdiction.' " Id., at 166 (citation omitted).
See also Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Taylor, 481 U. S. 58 (1987); Franchise Tax Bd. of Cal. v. Construction Laborers Vacation Trust for Southern Cal., 463 U. S. 1, 7-12 (1983).
This statement, however, and others like it, appear in the context of cases involving both federal-law and state-law claims. And the Seventh Circuit found a significant difference between such cases and cases in which the Eleventh Amendment applies to some of the federal-law claims. See 116 F. 3d, at 1152. In the former cases the state-law claims fall within the supplemental jurisdiction of the federal courts. Supplemental jurisdiction allows federal courts to hear and decide state-law claims along with federal-law claims when they "are so related to claims in the action within such original jurisdiction that they form part of the same case or controversy." 28 U. S. C. § 1367(a); see Chicago, supra, at 164-166. Cf. § 1441(c) (explicitly providing discretionary removal jurisdiction over entire case where federal claim is accompanied by a "separate and independent" state-law claim). In the latter cases, the comparable claims do not fall within the federal courts' "pendent" jurisdiction, but rather, it is argued, are claims that the Eleventh Amendment prohibits the federal courts from deciding.
Second, the argument emphasizes the "jurisdictional" nature of this difference. The Seventh Circuit, for example, said: "Claims barred by sovereign immunity stand on different footing than other claims that are not independently removable, because of the affirmative limitation on jurisdiction imposed by the sovereign immunity doctrines." 116 F. 3d, at 1152 (citing Frances J., supra, at 340-341, and n. 4). That is to say, according to the Court of Appeals, neither the law
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