Supreme Court of the United States - BRIEF OF AMICI CURIAE PUBLIC CITIZEN AND AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION

4 An “assessment of the applicability of a state law to federal civil rights litigation … in light of the purpose and nature of the federal right,” id. [...] Requiring individuals to exhaust state administrative remedies and “seek redress in the first instance from the very targets of the federal legislation[] is inconsistent in both purpose and effect with the remedial objectives of the federal civil rights law.” Felder, 487 U. [...] Put simply, regardless of whether a Section 1983 lawsuit is filed in federal or state court, “[a] state law … that directs injured persons to seek redress in the first instance from the very targets of the federal legislation[] is inconsistent in both purpose and effect with the remedial objectives of the federal civil rights law.” Id. [...] Irrespective of whether a Section 1983 claim is litigated in state or federal court, conditioning availability of the claim on the plaintiff’s exhaustion of state administrative remedies would undermine the federal right of action. [...] Such a plaintiff can either “file the entire action in state court, drop the state-law claims in order to file in federal court, or bifurcate the case” so that the state-law claims are in state court and the federal-law claims are in federal 11 court.