Cite as: 526 U. S. 687 (1999)
Opinion of Scalia, J.
V
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Justice Scalia, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
I join all except Part IV-A-2 of Justice Kennedy's opinion. In my view, all § 1983 actions must be treated alike insofar as the Seventh Amendment right to jury trial is concerned; that right exists when monetary damages are sought; and the issues submitted to the jury in the present case were properly sent there.
I
Revised Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, creates a duty to refrain from interference with the federal rights of others, and provides money damages and injunctive relief for violation of that duty. Since the statute itself confers no right to jury trial, such a right is to be found, if at all, in the application to § 1983 of the Seventh Amendment, which guarantees a jury "[i]n Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars." In determining whether a particular cause of action is a "[s]ui[t] at common law" within the meaning of this provision, we must examine whether it was tried at law in 1791 or is analogous to such a cause, see, e. g., Granfinanciera, S. A. v. Nordberg, 492 U. S. 33, 42 (1989), and whether it seeks relief that is legal or equitable in nature, see, e. g., Tull v. United States, 481 U. S. 412, 421 (1987).
The fundamental difference between my view of this case and Justice Souter's is that I believe § 1983 establishes a unique, or at least distinctive, cause of action, in that the legal duty which is the basis for relief is ultimately defined not by the claim-creating statute itself, but by an extrinsic body of law to which the statute refers, namely, "federal
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