Opinion of the Court. But the exemption of the United States from judicial process does not protect their officers and agents, civil or military, in time of peace, from being personally liable to an action of tort by a private person whose rights of property they have wrongfully invaded or injured, even by authority of the United States. Little v. Barreme, 2 Cranch, 169; Bates v. Clark, 95 U. S. 204. Such officers or agents, although acting under order of the United States, are therefore personally liable to be sued for their own infringement of a patent. Cammeyer v. Newton, 94 U. S. 225, 235. See also Feather v. The Queen, 6 B. & S. 257, 297; Vavasseur v. Krupp, 9 Ch. D. 351, 355, 358. The extent to which officers or agents of the government may be restrained by injunction from doing unlawful acts to the prejudice of private rights is illustrated by the decisions of this court regarding injunctions from the courts of the United States to officers and agents of a State, which, by the Constitution of the United States, is as exempt as the United States are from private suit. Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U. S. 1. In a suit to which the State is neither formally nor really a party, its officers, although acting by its order and for its benefit, may be restrained by injunction, when the remedy at law is inadequate, from doing positive acts, for which they are personally and individually liable, taking or injuring the plaintiff's property, contrary to a plain official duty requiring no exercise of discretion, and in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States. Osborn v. Bank of United States, 9 Wheat. 738, 868, 871; Board of Liquidation v. McComb, 92 U. S. 531, 541; Allen v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, 114 U. S. 311; Pennoyer v. McConnaughy, 140 U. S. 1. But no injunction can be issued against officers of a State, to restrain or control the use of property already in the possession of the State, or money in its treasury when the suit is commenced; or to compel the State to perform its obligations; or where the State has otherwise such an interest in the object of the suit as to be a necessary party. Louisiana v. Jumel, and Elliott v. Wiltz, 107 U. S. 711, 720–728; Cunningham v. Macon & Brunswick Railroad, 109 U. S. 446, 454-457; Hagood v. Opinion of the Court. Sothern, 117 U. S. 52, 70; In re Ayers, 123 U. S. 443; North Carolina v. Temple, 134 U. S. 22; McGahey v. Virginia, 135 U. S. 662, 684. In support of the decree below, much reliance was placed upon United States v. Lee, 106 U. S. 196; Stanley v. Schwalby, 147 U. S. 508; and The Virginia Coupon Cases, 114 U. S. 269. In United States v. Lee, the decision of the court, speaking by Mr. Justice Miller, was that the owner of land held and occupied by the United States for public uses, but under a defective title, might maintain, against the officers in possession of the land under authority of the United States, an action of ejectment, notwithstanding the interposition of the Attorney General in behalf of the United States. A year afterwards, Mr. Justice Miller, again delivering the opinion of the court, after mentioning a different class of cases, said: "Another class of cases is where an individual is sued in tort for some act injurious to another in regard to person or property, to which his defence is that he has acted under the orders of the government. In these cases he is not sued as, or because he is, the officer of the government, but as an individual, and the court is not ousted of jurisdiction because he asserts authority as such officer. To make out his defence he must show that his authority was sufficient in law to protect him." After citing several cases to this point, he added: "To this class belongs also the recent case of United States v. Lee, 106 U. S. 196, for the action of ejectment in that case is, in its essential character, an action of trespass, with the power in the court to restore the possession to the plaintiff as part of the judgment. And the defendants Strong and Kaufman, being sued individually as trespassers, set up their authority as officers of the United States, which this court held to be unlawful, and therefore insufficient as a defence. The judgment in that case did not conclude the United States, as the opinion carefully stated, but held the officers liable as unauthorized trespassers, and turned them out of their unlawful possession." Cunningham v. Macon & Brunswick Railroad, 109 U. S. 446, 452. This statement of the decision in United States v. Lee was Opinion of the Court. repeated in Stanley v. Schwalby, in which the point decided was that the statute of limitations, or adverse possession, might be pleaded in defence of an action of trespass to try title against officers of the United States. 147 U. S. 508, 518. In Cunningham v. Macon & Brunswick Railroad, above cited, a bill in equity to foreclose a second mortgage of a railroad, and to set aside as invalid a sale and conveyance of the road to the State of Georgia under a foreclosure of the first mortgage, was filed by holders of bonds secured by the second mortgage against the Governor and the Treasurer of the State, as well as against the railroad company and its directors; and was ordered to be dismissed for want of jurisdiction, because, as was said in the opinion: "It may be accepted as a point of departure unquestioned, that neither a State nor the United States can be sued as defendant in any court in this country without their consent, except in the limited class of cases in which a State may be made a party in the Supreme Court of the United States by virtue of the original jurisdiction conferred on this court by the Constitution. This principle is conceded in all the cases; and whenever it can be clearly seen that the State is an indispensable party to enable the court, according to the rules which govern its procedure, to grant the relief sought, it will refuse to take jurisdiction." "In the case now under consideration, the State of Georgia is an indispensable party. It is in fact the only proper defendant in the case. No one sued has any personal interest in the matter, or any official authority to grant the relief asked. No foreclosure suit can be sustained without the State, because she has the legal title to the property, and the purchaser under a foreclosure decree would get no title in the absence of the State. The State is in the actual possession of the property, and the court can deliver no possession to the purchaser. The entire interest adverse to plaintiff in this suit is the interest of the State of Georgia in the property, of which she has both the title and possession." 109 U. S. 451, 457. In the cases cited by the appellee, reported under the head of The Virginia Coupon Cases, 114 U. S. 269, where a collector of taxes due to the State of Virginia refused to receive Opinion of the Court. coupons of the State tendered in payment of such a tax, because forbidden to do so by a statute of the State, which was unconstitutional and void as impairing the obligation of the contract made by the State with the holders of such coupons in the statute under which they were issued, the court, speaking by Mr. Justice Matthews, held that the collector was liable to an action of detinue, or of trespass, for distraining personal property for non-payment of the tax; or, where the remedy at law was inadequate, might be restrained by injunction from making the distraint. Poindexter v. Greenhow, 114 U. S. 270; Chaffin v. Taylor, 114 U. S. 309; Allen v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, 114 U. S. 311. But where the Circuit Court of the United States, at the suit of one who had tendered such coupons in payment of his taxes, issued an injunction against the Attorney General and other attorneys of the State of Virginia to restrain them from bringing any action in behalf of the State to recover such taxes, and, upon their bringing such actions, committed them for contempt in disobeying the injunction, they were discharged by this court on writs of habeas corpus. Mr. Justice Matthews, again delivering its opinion, and fully reviewing the previous cases, said that from the decision in Cunningham v. Macon & Brunswick Railroad, above cited, "the inference is, that where it is manifest, upon the face of the record, that the defendants have no individual interest in the controversy, and that the relief sought against them is only in their official capacity as representatives of the State, which alone is to be affected by the judgment or decree, the question then arising, whether the suit is not substantially a suit against the State, is one of jurisdiction;" and added that actions had been sustained against officers acting in behalf of a State "only in those instances where the act complained of, considered apart from the official authority alleged as to its justification, and as the personal act of the individual defendant, constituted a violation of right for which the plaintiff was entitled to a remedy at law or in equity against the wrongdoer in his individual character;" and that the Eleventh Amendment of the Constitution, declaring that "the judicial power of the United Opinion of the Court. States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by citizens of another State, or by citizens or subjects of any foreign State," must be held "to cover, not only suits brought against a State by name, but those also against its officers, agents and representatives, where the State, though not named as such, is, nevertheless, the only real party against which alone in fact the relief is asked, and against which the judgment or decree effectively operates; " and therefore concluded that the suit in which the injunction was granted was in substance and in law a suit against the State of Virginia, and consequently the Circuit Court was without jurisdiction to entertain it, the order of injunction and the commitments for contempt were null and void, and the imprisonment of the officers was without authority of law. In re Ayers, 123 U. S. 443, 489, 502, 506, 507. When the matter of the Virginia coupons was last brought before this court, Mr. Justice Bradley, delivering its unanimous opinion, summed up, as the result of the previous decisions, so far as concerns the subject now under consideration, "that no proceedings can be instituted by any holder of said bonds or coupons against the Commonwealth of Virginia, either directly by suit against the Commonwealth by name, or indirectly against her executive officers to control them in the exercise of their official functions as agents of the State;" but that any holder "who tenders such coupons in payment of taxes, debts, dues and demands due from him to the State, and continues to hold himself ready to tender the same in payment thereof, is entitled to be free from molestation in person or goods on account of such taxes, debts, dues or demands, and may vindicate such right in all lawful modes of redressby suit to recover his property, by suit against the officer to recover damages for taking it, by injunction to prevent such taking where it would be attended with irremediable injury, or by a defence to a suit brought against him for his taxes or the other claims standing against him." McGahey v. Virginia, 135 U. S. 662, 684. And this summary was repeated and approved in Pennoyer v. McConnaughy, 140 U. S. 1, 15. |