Cite as: 526 U. S. 687 (1999)
Opinion of Souter, J.
claim: "The central question remains whether a § 1983 suit is entitled to a jury." Ante, at 724 (opinion concurring in part and concurring in judgment). The analogy to the broad class of § 1983 actions is put forward as serving the un-doubted virtues of simplicity and uniformity in treating various actions that may be brought under a single remedial statute. It is only when "apply[ing] this methodology to the present case," ante, at 727, that Justice Scalia is careful not to claim too much: he no longer argues for drawing an analogy between § 1983 inverse condemnation actions and all § 1983 actions, but only those § 1983 actions brought to recover money damages, see ante, at 729. This subclass of § 1983 actions, he quite correctly notes, has been treated as tortlike in character and thus as much entitled to jury trial as tort actions have been at common law. For two independent reasons, however, I think the analogy with § 1983 actions, either as a class or as a subclass of damages actions, is inadequate.
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First, the analogy to all § 1983 actions does not serve any unified field theory of jury rights under § 1983. While the statute is indeed a prism through which rights originating elsewhere may pass on their way to a federal jury trial, trial by jury is not a uniform feature of § 1983 actions. The statute provides not only for actions at law with damages remedies where appropriate, but for "suit[s] in equity, or other proper proceeding[s] for redress." 42 U. S. C. § 1983. Accordingly, rights passing through the § 1983 prism may in proper cases be vindicated by injunction, see, e. g., Mitchum v. Foster, 407 U. S. 225, 242-243 (1972) (§ 1983 falls within "expressly authorized" exception of Anti-Injunction Act and thus authorizes injunctions staying state-court proceedings), by orders of restitution, see, e. g., Samuel v. University of Pittsburgh, 538 F. 2d 991, 994-995 (CA3 1976) (restitution of university fees collected pursuant to rule held to violate Equal Protection Clause), and by declaratory judgments, see,
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