Jinks v. Richland County, 538 U.S. 456, 11 (2003)

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466

JINKS v. RICHLAND COUNTY

Opinion of the Court

527 U. S. 706 (1999), it may subject a municipality to suit in state court if that is done pursuant to a valid exercise of its enumerated powers, see id., at 756. Section 1367(d) tolls the limitations period with respect to state-law causes of action brought against municipalities, but we see no reason why that represents a greater intrusion on "state sovereignty" than the undisputed power of Congress to override state-law immunity when subjecting a municipality to suit under a federal cause of action. In either case, a State's authority to set the conditions upon which its political subdivisions are subject to suit in its own courts must yield to the enactments of Congress. This is not an encroachment on "state sovereignty," but merely the consequence of those cases (which respondent does not ask us to overrule) which hold that municipalities, unlike States, do not enjoy a constitutionally protected immunity from suit.

Nor do we see any reason to construe § 1367(d) not to apply to claims brought against a State's political subdivisions absent an "unmistakably clear" statement of the statute's applicability to such claims. Although we held in Raygor v. Regents of Univ. of Minn., 534 U. S. 533 (2002), that § 1367(d) does not apply to claims filed in federal court against States but subsequently dismissed on sovereign immunity grounds, we did so to avoid interpreting the statute in a manner that would raise "serious constitutional doubt" in light of our decisions protecting a State's sovereign immunity from congressional abrogation, id., at 543. As we have just explained, however, no such constitutional doubt arises from holding that petitioner's claim against respondent—which is not a State, but a political subdivision of a State—falls under the definition of "any claim asserted under subsection (a)." § 1367(d) (emphasis added). In any event, the idea that an "unmistakably clear" statement is required before an Act of Congress may expose a local government to liability cannot possibly be reconciled with our holding in Monell v. New

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