726
Opinion of Scalia, J.
cedural due process, mistreatment of schoolchildren, deliberate indifference to the medical needs of prison inmates, the seizure of chattels without advance notice or sufficient opportunity to be heard—to identify only a few." Id., at 272-273 (footnotes omitted).
For these reasons the Court concluded that all § 1983 actions should be characterized as "tort action[s] for the recovery of damages for personal injuries." Id., at 276.
To be sure, § 1988 is not the Seventh Amendment. It is entirely possible to analogize § 1983 to the "common law" in one fashion for purposes of that statute, and in another fashion for purposes of the constitutional guarantee. But I cannot imagine why one would want to do that. For both purposes it is a "unique federal remedy" whose character is determined by the federal cause of action, and not by the innumerable constitutional and statutory violations upon which that cause of action is dependent. And for both purposes the search for (often nonexistent) common-law analogues to remedies for those particular violations is a major headache. Surely, the burden should be upon Justice Souter to explain why a different approach is appropriate in the present context. I adhere to the approach of Wilson, reaffirmed and refined in Owens v. Okure, 488 U. S. 235 (1989), that a § 1983 action is a § 1983 action.1
1 Justice Souter properly notes that "trial by jury is not a uniform feature of § 1983 actions." Post, at 751. This does not lead, however, to his desired conclusion that all § 1983 actions can therefore not properly be analogized to tort claims. Post, at 740, 750-752. Before the merger of law and equity, a contested right would have to be established at law before relief could be obtained in equity. Thus, a suit in equity to enjoin an alleged nuisance could not be brought until a tort action at law established the right to relief. See 1 J. High, Law of Injunctions 476-477 (2d ed. 1880). Since the merger of law and equity, any type of relief, including purely equitable relief, can be sought in a tort suit—so that I can file a tort action seeking only an injunction against a nuisance. If I should do so, the fact that I seek only equitable relief would disentitle me to a jury, see, e. g., Curtis v. Loether, 415 U. S. 189, 198 (1974); Dairy Queen,
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