614
Syllabus
court, but it then voluntarily removed the case to federal court, thus voluntarily invoking that court's jurisdiction. Unless this Court is to abandon the general principle requiring waiver or there is something special about removal in this case, the general principle should apply. Pp. 618-620.
(c) Contrary to respondents' arguments, there is no reason to abandon the general principle. The principle enunciated in Gunter, Gardner, and Clark did not turn on the nature of the relief and is sound as applied to money damages cases such as this. And more recent cases requiring a clear indication of a State's intent to waive its immunity, e. g., College Savings Bank, 527 U. S., at 675-681, distinguished the kind of constructive waivers repudiated there from waivers effected by litigation conduct, id., at 681, n. 3. Nor have respondents pointed to a special feature of removal or of this case that would justify taking the case out from the general rule. That Georgia claims a benign motive for removal— not to obtain litigating advantages for itself but to provide the officials sued in their personal capacities with the interlocutory appeal provisions available in federal court—cannot make a critical difference. Motives are difficult to evaluate, while jurisdictional rules should be clear. Because adopting respondents' position would permit States to achieve unfair tactical advantages, if not in this case, then in others, see Wisconsin Dept. of Corrections v. Schacht, 524 U. S. 381, 393-394, the rationale for applying the general principle is as strong here as elsewhere. Respondents also argue that Georgia is entitled to immunity because state law does not authorize its attorney general to waive Eleventh Amendment immunity and because, in Ford Motor Co. v. Department of Treasury of Ind., 323 U. S. 459, a State regained immunity by showing such lack of authority—even after the State had litigated the case against it. Here, however, Georgia voluntarily invoked the federal court's jurisdiction, while the State in Ford had involuntarily been made a federal-court defendant. This Court has consistently found waiver when a state attorney general, authorized to bring a case in federal court, has voluntarily invoked that court's jurisdiction. More importantly, in large part the rule governing voluntary invocations of federal jurisdiction has rested upon the inconsistency and unfairness that a contrary rule would create. A rule that finds waiver through a state attorney general's invocation of federal-court jurisdiction avoids inconsistency and unfairness, but a rule that, as in Ford, denies waiver despite the attorney general's state-authorized litigating decision does the opposite. For these reasons, Clark, Gunter, and Gardner represent the sounder line of authority, and Ford, which is inconsistent with the basic rationale of those cases, is overruled insofar as it would
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