Wisconsin Department of Corrections v. Schacht
The Supreme Court ruled that a case can be moved from state to federal court even when it includes a claim against a state government that the Eleventh Amendment blocks federal courts from hearing.
The presence of one legally barred claim does not force the whole lawsuit back to state court — the federal court can still decide the other claims, resolving a split among federal appeals courts.
How it got here: A federal trial court ruled against the guard on the merits and dismissed the state-immunity claims; the Seventh Circuit vacated everything, ruling removal itself had been improper.
The Case in Depth
What happened
A Wisconsin prison guard was fired for allegedly stealing from the prison where he worked. He sued the state corrections department and several of its employees in state court, claiming they violated his constitutional and civil rights when they fired him without proper process, naming defendants both personally and in their official state roles.
The question before the Court
A prison guard sued a state agency and its employees in state court under federal civil rights law; could the defendants move the whole case to federal court even though some claims against the state were barred by the Eleventh Amendment?
Why it matters
Employees and others who sue state governments and individual officials together in one lawsuit can still have their case heard in federal court, even though the claims against the state itself may later be dismissed. This prevents federal courts from being forced to send entire lawsuits back to state court just because one claim happens to be barred, saving time and resources for everyone involved.
What changes now
The Supreme Court sent the case back to the Seventh Circuit for further proceedings consistent with its ruling. That means the appeals court must now actually review the guard's argument that the trial court wrongly granted summary judgment on his personal-capacity claims, an issue it never reached before because it had wrongly concluded the whole case should have stayed in state court. This is a final decision on the removal question, not a temporary order.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether Eleventh Amendment immunity actually counts as a limit on a court's subject-matter jurisdiction — it assumed that only for the sake of argument. It also did not address whether Wisconsin, by agreeing to remove the case to federal court, gave up its immunity defense; that issue was left for a future case.
Concurrences and dissents
How the Justices voted
Majority (1). Justice Breyer (author).
Separate writings (1). Justice Kennedy (author of a concurrence).
Concurrence — Justice Kennedy
Justice Kennedy agreed with the majority but wrote separately to flag an issue the Court did not address: whether Wisconsin waived its Eleventh Amendment immunity by voluntarily consenting to remove the case to federal court in the first place. He walked through the Court's inconsistent treatment of Eleventh Amendment waiver, suggested that voluntarily invoking federal jurisdiction through removal is a stronger basis for finding waiver than merely defending on the merits, but concluded the question needed full briefing in a future case rather than being decided here. Read the full concurrence →
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court explained that a case can be removed to federal court whenever it includes at least one claim 'arising under' federal law, because federal law gives district courts original jurisdiction over such claims regardless of what other claims are attached.
- The Court rejected the argument that Eleventh Amendment claims should be treated like the 'complete diversity' rule in diversity-jurisdiction cases, where citizenship problems with even one defendant automatically destroy a court's power to hear the whole case without anyone needing to raise the issue.
- The Court distinguished the Eleventh Amendment as a defense the state must choose to assert and can waive, unlike a diversity defect, which no party can waive and which courts must raise on their own even if nobody objects.
- Because the state's immunity defense does not exist automatically at the moment a case is filed, but only becomes relevant if and when the state raises it, the Court found the case was still properly within the federal court's power to accept on removal.
- Turning to the remand statute, the Court read its requirement to send back a 'case' lacking subject-matter jurisdiction as applying to the case as a whole only when jurisdiction over the whole case is missing, not automatically whenever just one claim is barred.
- The Court concluded that once a state properly raises its Eleventh Amendment defense after removal, the federal court simply cannot decide the barred claim, but it still keeps the power to decide the remaining claims in the same lawsuit.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Distinguishes Caterpillar Inc. v. Lewis (519 U. S. 61)
The complete-diversity rule from this case does not apply the same way to Eleventh Amendment defenses.
Distinguishes Newman-Green, Inc. v. Alfonzo-Larrain (490 U. S. 826)
Diversity jurisdiction's strict nondiverse-defendant rule doesn't carry over to Eleventh Amendment immunity questions.
Reaffirms St. Paul Mercury Indemnity Co. v. Red Cab Co. (303 U. S. 283)
Reaffirmed that jurisdiction is judged as of the time of filing, and later events don't automatically destroy it.