400
Opinion of O'Connor, J.
(1999). Application of that principle in this case leads me to conclude that the District Court and the Court of Appeals should have considered the state officials' immunity claims as they determined the Tribal Court's jurisdiction.
The doctrines of official immunity, see, e. g., Westfall v. Erwin, 484 U. S. 292, 296-300 (1988), and qualified immunity, see, e. g., Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 800, 813-819 (1982), are designed to protect state and federal officials from civil liability for conduct that was within the scope of their duties or conduct that did not violate clearly established law. These doctrines short-circuit civil litigation for officials who meet these standards so that these officials are not subjected to the costs of trial or the burdens of discovery. 457 U. S., at 817-818. For example, the Federal Employees Liability Reform and Tort Compensation Act of 1988, commonly known as the Westfall Act, allows the United States to substitute itself for a federal employee as defendant upon certifying that the employee was acting within the scope of his duties. 28 U. S. C. § 2679(d). Nevada law contains analogous provisions. See Nev. Rev. Stat. §§ 41.032, 41.0335- 41.0339 (1996 and Supp. 1999). The employee who successfully claims official immunity therefore invokes the immunity of the sovereign. When a state or federal official asserts qualified immunity, he claims that his actions were reasonable in light of clearly established law. Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U. S. 635 (1987). In those cases, we allow that official to take an immediate interlocutory appeal from an adverse ruling to ensure that the civil proceedings do not continue if immunity should be granted. Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U. S. 511, 524-530 (1985).
In this case, the state officials raised their immunity defenses in Tribal Court as they challenged that court's subject matter jurisdiction. App. to Pet. for Cert. J5-J6, K8, K11-K13; 196 F. 3d, at 1029-1031. Thus the Tribal Court and the Appellate Tribal Court had a full opportunity to address the immunity claims. These defendants, like other
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