violations, that disagreement cannot override the dictates of federal law. “Congress surely did not intend to assign to state courts and legislatures a conclusive role in the formative function of defining and characterizing the essential elements of a federal cause of action." Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U. S. 261, 269 (1985).

If, on the other hand, the District Court of Appeal meant that §1983 claims are excluded from the category of tort claims that the Circuit Court could hear against a school board, its holding was no less violative of federal law. Cf. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Burnette, 239 U. S. 199, 201 (1915). This case does not present the questions whether Congress can require the States to create a forum with the capacity to enforce federal statutory rights or to authorize service of process on parties who would not otherwise be subject to the court's jurisdiction.20 The State of Florida has constituted the Circuit Court for Pinellas County as a court of general jurisdiction." It exercises jurisdiction over tort claims by private citizens against state entities (including school boards), of the size and type of petitioner's claim here, and it can enter judgment against them. That court also exercises jurisdiction over § 1983 actions against individual officers 22 and is fully competent to provide the remedies the fed

20 Virtually every State has expressly or by implication opened its courts to § 1983 actions, and there are no state court systems that refuse to hear § 1983 cases. See S. Steinglass, Section 1983 Litigation in State Courts 1-3, and App. E (1989) (listing cases). We have no occasion to address in this case the contentions of respondents' amici, see Brief for National Association of Counties et al. as Amici Curiae 16-25; Brief for Washington Legal Foundation et al. as Amici Curiae 9-15, that the States need not establish courts competent to entertain § 1983 claims. See Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U. S. 1, 3, n. 1 (1980); Martinez v. California, 444 U. S. 277, 283, n. 7 (1980).

21 See Fla. Stat. § 26.012(2)(a) (1989).

22 See, e. g., Lloyd v. Ellis, 520 So. 2d 59, 60 (App. 1st Dist. 1988); Skoblow v. Ameri-Manage, Inc., 483 So. 2d 809, 812 (App. 3d Dist. 1986), aff'd on other grounds, Spooner v. Department of Corrections, 514 So. 2d 1077 (1987); Chapman v. State Dept. of Health and Rehabilitative Servs.,

eral statute requires. Cf. Sullivan v. Little Hunting Park, Inc., 396 U. S. 229, 238 (1969). Petitioner has complied with all the state-law procedures for invoking the jurisdiction of that court.

The mere facts, as argued by respondents' amici, that state common law and statutory law do not make unlawful the precise conduct that § 1983 addresses and that § 1983 actions "are more likely to be frivolous than are other suits," Brief for Washington Legal Foundation et al. as Amici Curiae 17, clearly cannot provide sufficient justification for the State's refusal to entertain such actions. These reasons have never been asserted by the State and are not asserted by the school board. More importantly, they are not the kind of neutral policy that could be a "valid excuse" for the state court's refusal to entertain federal actions. To the extent that the Florida rule is based upon the judgment that parties who are otherwise subject to the jurisdiction of the court should not be held liable for activity that would not subject them to liability under state law, we understand that to be only another way of saying that the court disagrees with the content of federal law. Sovereign immunity in Florida turns on the nature of the claim-whether the duty allegedly breached is discretionary-not on the subject matter of the dispute. There is no question that the Circuit Court, which entertains state common-law and statutory claims against state entities in a variety of their capacities, ranging from law enforcement to schooling to the protection of individuals using parking lots, has jurisdiction over the subject of this suit. That court cannot reject petitioner's § 1983 claim

23

517 So. 2d 104, 105-106 (App. 3d Dist. 1987); Arney v. Department of Natural Resources, 448 So. 2d 1041, 1045 (App. 1st Dist. 1983); Penthouse, Inc. v. Saba, 399 So. 2d 456, 458-459 (App. 2d Dist. 1981). The Florida courts have also considered on the merits applications for attorney's fees under 42 U. S. C. § 1988, even against county school boards. See, e. g., Hoffmeister v. Coler, 544 So. 2d 1067 (App. 4th Dist. 1989); Franklin County School Board v. Page, 540 So. 2d 891 (App. 1st Dist. 1989). 23 See nn. 7-11, supra.

because it has chosen, for substantive policy reasons, not to adjudicate other claims which might also render the school board liable. The federal law is law in the State as much as laws passed by the state legislature. A "state court cannot 'refuse to enforce the right arising from the law of the United States because of conceptions of impolicy or want of wisdom on the part of Congress in having called into play its lawful powers.'" Testa, 330 U. S., at 393 (quoting Minneapolis & St. Louis R. Co. v. Bombolis, 241 U. S., at 222).

The argument by amici that suits predicated on federal law are more likely to be frivolous and have less of an entitlement to the State's limited judicial resources warrants little response. A State may adopt neutral procedural rules to discourage frivolous litigation of all kinds, as long as those rules are not pre-empted by a valid federal law. A State may not, however, relieve congestion in its courts by declaring a whole category of federal claims to be frivolous. Until it has been proved that the claim has no merit, that judgment is not up to the States to make.

Respondents have offered no neutral or valid excuse for the Circuit Court's refusal to hear § 1983 actions against state entities. The Circuit Court would have had jurisdiction if the defendant were an individual officer and the action were based on § 1983. It would also have had jurisdiction over the defendant school board if the action were based on established state common law or statutory law. A state policy that permits actions against state agencies for the failure of their officials to adequately police a parking lot and for the negligence of such officers in arresting a person on a roadside, but yet declines jurisdiction over federal actions for constitutional violations by the same persons can be based only on the rationale that such persons should not be held liable for § 1983 violations in the courts of the State. That reason, whether presented in terms of direct disagreement with substantive federal law or simple refusal to take cognizance of

the federal cause of action, flatly violates the Supremacy Clause.

V

Respondents offer two final arguments in support of the judgment of the District Court of Appeal.24 First, at oral argument-but not in their brief-they argued that a federal court has no power to compel a state court to entertain a claim over which the state court has no jurisdiction as a matter of state law. Second, respondents argue that sovereign immunity is not a creature of state law, but of longestablished legal principles which have not been set aside by § 1983. We find no merit in these contentions.

The fact that a rule is denominated jurisdictional does not provide a court an excuse to avoid the obligation to enforce federal law if the rule does not reflect the concerns of power over the person and competence over the subject matter that jurisdictional rules are designed to protect. It is settled that a court of otherwise competent jurisdiction may not avoid its parallel obligation under the Full Faith and Credit Clause to entertain another State's cause of action by invocation of the term "jurisdiction." See First Nat. Bank of Chicago v. United Air Lines, Inc., 342 U. S. 396 (1952); Hughes v. Fetter, 341 U. S. 609, 611 (1951); Broderick v. Rosner, 294 U. S. 629, 642-643 (1935); Kenney v. Supreme Lodge, Loyal Order of Moose, 252 U. S. 411 (1920). A State cannot "escape this constitutional obligation to enforce the rights and duties validly created under the laws of other states by the simple device of removing jurisdiction from courts otherwise compe

24 Respondents also argue in their brief on the merits that a Florida school board is an arm of the State and thus is not a person under § 1983. This contention was not presented in respondents' brief in opposition to the petition for certiorari, and we decline to reach it here. See California Board of Equalization v. Sierra Summit, Inc., 490 U. S. 844, 846, n. 3 (1989); Canton v. Harris, 489 U. S. 378, 384–385 (1989); Oklahoma City v. Tuttle, 471 U. S. 808, 815-816 (1985).

tent." Hughes, 341 U. S., at 611.25 Similarly, a State may not evade the strictures of the Privileges and Immunities Clause by denying jurisdiction to a court otherwise competent. See Angel v. Bullington, 330 U. S. 183, 188–189 (1947); Douglas v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 279 U. S. 377 (1929); cf. White v. Hart, 13 Wall. 646, 653-654 (1872) (Contract Clause). As our discussion of Testa, McKnett, and Mondou establishes, the same is true with respect to a state court's obligations under the Supremacy Clause.26 The force

25 See Currie, The Constitution and the "Transitory" Cause of Action, 73 Harv. L. Rev. 268, 302 (1959) ("The supremacy clause. . . forecloses state social and economic policies just as the full faith and credit clause forecloses them when the subject is solely within the control of a sister state"); Hill, Substance and Procedure in State FELA Actions-The Converse of the Erie Problem?, 17 Ohio St. L. J. 384, 410-411, n. 159 (1956) ("Just as the states are obliged to give effect to legal rights created by other states, so they are obliged, even without a Congressional directive, to give effect to legal rights created by federal law" (citations omitted)); Brilmayer & Underhill, Congressional Obligation to Provide a Forum for Constitutional Claims: Discriminatory Jurisdictional Rules and the Conflict of Laws, 69 Va. L. Rev. 819, 819-829 (1983).

26 As Justice Brandeis stated in McKnett v. St. Louis & San Francisco R. Co., 292 U. S. 230 (1934):

"The power of a State to determine the limits of the jurisdiction of its courts and the character of the controversies which shall be heard in them is, of course, subject to the restrictions imposed by the Federal Constitution. The privileges and immunities clause requires a state to accord to citizens of other states substantially the same right of access to its courts as it accords to its own citizens. Corfield v. Coryell, 4 Wash. C. C. 371, 381. Compare Canadian Northern Ry. Co. v. Eggen, 252 U. S. 553. The full faith and credit clause requires a state court to take jurisdiction of an action to enforce a judgment recovered in another state, although it might have refused to entertain a suit on the original cause of action as obnoxious to its public policy. Fauntleroy v. Lum, 210 U. S. 230; Kenney v. Supreme Lodge, 252 U. S. 411, 415; Loughran v. Loughran, decided this day, ante, p. 216. By Mondou v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 223 U. S. 1, an action in a Connecticut court against a domestic corporation, it was settled that a state court whose ordinary jurisdiction as prescribed by local laws is appropriate for the occasion, may not refuse to entertain suits under the Federal Employers' Liability Act." Id., at 233.