Who Settles Disputes Between States

Article Three, Section 2, Clause 1:

The Judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Police force and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the The states, and Treaties fabricated, or which shall be fabricated, under their Authority;—to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;—to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction; to Controversies to which the United States shall exist a Party;—to Controversies between two or more States; between a State and Citizens of another State; between Citizens of different States,—between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of dissimilar States, and betwixt a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.

The extension of federal judicial power to controversies between states and the vesting of original jurisdiction in the Supreme Court of suits to which a state is a political party had its origin in feel. Prior to independence, disputes between colonies claiming charter rights to territory were settled past the Privy Council. Under the Manufactures of Confederation, Congress was made "the concluding resort on appeal" to resolve "all disputes and differences . . . between two or more States concerning boundary, jurisdiction, or whatsoever other cause whatsoever," and to establish what in effect were ad hoc arbitral courts for determining such disputes and rendering a final judgment therein. When the Philadelphia Convention met in 1787, serious disputes over boundaries, lands, and river rights involved ten states.1 It is hardly surprising, therefore, that during its first 60 years the simply state disputes coming to the Supreme Court were boundary disputes2 or that such disputes found the largest unmarried number of suits between states. Since 1900, however, as the result of the increasing mobility of population and wealth and the effects of engineering science and industrialization, other types of cases have occurred with increasing frequency.

Of the earlier examples of suits betwixt states, that betwixt New Jersey and New York3 is pregnant for the awarding of the rule laid downward before in Chisholm v. Georgia that the Supreme Court may proceed ex parte if a state refuses to appear when duly summoned. The long drawn out litigation betwixt Rhode Island and Massachusetts is of fifty-fifty greater significance for its rulings, later the case had been pending for seven years, that though the Constitution does not extend the judicial power to all controversies betwixt states, yet it does not exclude any,iv that a boundary dispute is a justiciable and not a political question,5 and that a prescribed rule of determination is unnecessary in such cases. On the last betoken, Justice Baldwin stated: "The submission by the sovereigns, or states, to a court of law or disinterestedness, of a controversy between them, without prescribing any rule of decision, gives power to determine according to the appropriate law of the case (11 Ves. 294); which depends on the subject-matter, the source and nature of the claims of the parties, and the police which governs them. From the fourth dimension of such submission, the question ceases to exist a political i, to exist decided by the sic volo, sic jubeo, of political power; it comes to the court, to be decided by its judgment, legal discretion and solemn consideration of the rules of law appropriate to its nature as a judicial question, depending on the do of judicial power; as information technology is bound to human action past known and settled principles of national or municipal jurisprudence, every bit the case requires." six

Beginning with Missouri 5. Illinois & Chicago District ,7 which sustained jurisdiction to entertain an injunction conform to restrain the discharge of sewage into the Mississippi River, water rights, the use of h2o resources, and the similar, accept become an increasing source of suits betwixt states. Such suits have been especially frequent in the western states,8 where water is fifty-fifty more than of a treasure than elsewhere, but they have not been confined to whatever one region.9 In Kansas v. Colorado ,10 the Court established the principle of the equitable division of river or water resource between conflicting state interests.xi

In New Jersey v. New York ,12 where New Jersey sought to enjoin the diversion of waters into the Hudson River watershed for New York in such a style as to diminish the menses of the Delaware River in New Jersey, injure its shad fisheries, and increase harmfully the saline contents of the Delaware, Justice Holmes stated for the Courtroom:

A river is more than an assiduities, it is a treasure. It offers a necessity of life that must be rationed amidst those who have power over it. New York has the physical ability to cut off all the h2o within its jurisdiction. But clearly the exercise of such a power to the destruction of the interest of lower States could not be tolerated. And on the other hand equally footling could New Bailiwick of jersey exist permitted to crave New York to give up its power altogether in order that the River might come down to information technology undiminished. Both States have real and substantial interests in the River that must be reconciled as all-time they may exist.xiii

Other types of interstate disputes of which the Court has taken jurisdiction include suits by a country as the donee of the bonds of another to collect thereon,14 by Virginia against Due west Virginia to decide the proportion of the public debt of the original State of Virginia which the latter owed the former,fifteen by Arkansas to enjoin Texas from interfering with the performance of a contract by a Texas foundation to contribute to the structure of a new hospital in the medical centre of the University of Arkansas,sixteen of one country against another to enforce a contract betwixt the two,17 of a adjust in equity betwixt states for the determination of a decedent's domicile for inheritance revenue enhancement purposes,18 and of a suit by two states to restrain a tertiary from enforcing a natural gas mensurate that purported to restrict the interstate menses of natural gas from the state in the event of a shortage.xix

More recently, in Florida v. Georgia , the Supreme Court summarized the "several related but more specific sets of principles" that govern the doctrine of equitable apportionment in interstate disputes between two states.twenty Florida five. Georgia involved a dispute brought by Florida, the downstream country, confronting Georgia over the division of water from an interstate river basin known equally the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee- Flint River Bowl.21 At the first, the Court noted that, "given the complexity of many water-sectionalisation cases, the need to secure equitable solutions, the need to respect the sovereign status of us, and the importance of finding flexible solutions to multi-gene problems, we typically engage a Special Chief and benefit from detailed factual findings." 22 The Court remanded the example to the Special Master assigned to the dispute, last that the Special Main had not applied the proper standard to evaluate the case.23 The Court further advised that, "[c]onsistent with the principles that guide our inquiry in this context, answers demand non exist 'mathematically precise or based on definite present and time to come conditions.' Approximation and reasonable estimates may prove 'necessary to protect the equitable rights of a Land.' . . . Flexibility and approximation are often the keys to success in our efforts to resolve water disputes betwixt sovereign States that neither Congress 'nor the legislature of either State' has been able to resolve." 24

In Texas v. New Bailiwick of jersey ,25 the Court adjudicated a multistate dispute about which country should be allowed to escheat intangible property consisting of uncollected small debts held by a corporation. Emphasizing that the states could not constitutionally provide a rule of settlement and that no federal statute governed the matter, the Court evaluated the possible rules and chose the 1 easiest to apply and least probable to pb to continuing disputes.

In general, in taking jurisdiction of these suits, along with those involving boundaries and the diversion or pollution of water resources, the Supreme Court proceeded upon the liberal structure of the term "controversies between ii or more States" enunciated in Rhode Isle five. Massachusetts ,26 and fortified by Main Justice Marshall's dictum in Cohens v. Virginia ,27 concerning jurisdiction because of the parties to a case, that "it is entirely unimportant, what may be the subject of controversy. Be information technology what it may, these parties have a constitutional right to come into the Courts of the Union." 28

In other cases, however, the Court, centering its attending upon the elements of a case or controversy, has declined jurisdiction. In Alabama v. Arizona ,29 (a) giving the Court "original and exclusive jurisdiction" of these kinds of suits. where Alabama sought to enjoin nineteen states from regulating or prohibiting the auction of convict-made goods, the beCourt went far beyond holding that it had no jurisdiction, and indicated that jurisdiction of suits between states will be exercised only when absolutely necessary, that the disinterestedness requirements in a accommodate between states are more exacting than in a suit between private persons, that the threatened injury to a plaintiff state must be of great magnitude and imminent, and that the burden on the plaintiff state to establish all the elements of a case is greater than the burden more often than not required past a petitioner seeking an injunction in cases between private parties.

Pursuing a similar line of reasoning, the Court declined to take jurisdiction of a suit brought by Massachusetts against Missouri and certain of its citizens to prevent Missouri from levying inheritance taxes upon intangibles held in trust in Missouri past resident trustees. In holding that the complaint presented no justiciable controversy, the Court declared that to constitute such a controversy, the complainant state must prove that it "has suffered a wrong through the action of the other State, furnishing basis for judicial redress, or is asserting a right against the other State which is susceptible of judicial enforcement according to . . . the common police force or equity systems of jurisprudence." 30 The fact that the trust property was sufficient to satisfy the claims of both states and that recovery by either would not impair any rights of the other distinguished the case from Texas v. Florida ,31 where the contrary situation obtained. Furthermore, the Missouri statute providing for reciprocal privileges in levying inheritance taxes did not confer upon Massachusetts any contractual right. The Court then proceeded to reiterate its earlier rule that a land may not invoke the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court for the benefit of its residents or to enforce the individual rights of its citizens.32 Moreover, Massachusetts could not invoke the original jurisdiction of the Court past the expedient of making citizens of Missouri parties to a suit not otherwise maintainable.33 Accordingly, Massachusetts was held not to be without an adequate remedy in Missouri'south courts or in a federal district courtroom in Missouri.

More recently, the Court, noting that proceedings under its original jurisdiction are "basically equitable," has taken the view that its enforcement say-so encompasses ordering disgorgement of part of one state's gain from its alienation of an interstate compact, too every bit reforming certain agreements adopted by usa.34 In and so doing, the Court emphasized that its enforcement authority derives both from its "inherent authority" to apportion interstate streams betwixt states equitably and from Congress'due south approving of interstate compacts. As to its inherent potency, the Court noted that states bargain for water rights "in the shadow of" the Court's broad power to apportion them equitably and information technology is "difficult to excogitate" that a state would hold to enter an agreement as to water rights if the Court lacked the power to enforce the understanding.35 The Courtroom similarly reasoned that its remedial authority "gains nevertheless greater force" because a meaty between the states, "having received Congress'southward blessing, counts as federal law." 36 The Court stated, however, that an interstate meaty'due south "legal status" as federal law could as well limit the Courtroom's enforcement power because the Court cannot order relief that is inconsistent with a compact'south limited terms.37

The decision in Chisholm v. Georgia 38 that cases "betwixt a state and citizens of another state" included those where a state was a party accused provoked the proposal and ratification of the Eleventh Amendment, and since then controversies between a land and citizens of another state have included only those cases where the state has been a political party plaintiff or has consented to be sued.39 As a party plaintiff, a land may bring actions confronting citizens of other states to protect its legal rights or in some instances as parens patriae to protect the health and welfare of its citizens. In general, the Court has tended to construe strictly this grant of judicial power, which simultaneously comes within its original jurisdiction, past maybe an even more rigorous application of the concepts of cases and controversies than that in cases between individual parties.twoscore This it does by holding rigorously to the rule that all the party defendants be citizens of other states41 and by adhering to congressional distribution of its original jurisdiction concurrently with that of other federal courts.42

In Cohens v. Virginia ,43 there is a dictum to the effect that the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court does not include suits between a state and its own citizens. Long after, the Supreme Courtroom dismissed an action for want of jurisdiction because the record did non prove that the corporation against which the suit was brought was chartered in some other country.44 Subsequently, the Court has ruled that it will not entertain an action by a land to which its citizens are either parties of tape or would have to be joined because of the effect of a judgment upon them.45 In his dictum in Cohens 5. Virginia , Main Justice Marshall also indicated that maybe no jurisdiction existed over suits by states to enforce their penal laws.46 Sixty-seven years later, the Court wrote this dictum into law in Wisconsin v. Pelican Ins. Co. 47 Wisconsin sued a Louisiana corporation to recover a judgment rendered in its favor by i of its own courts. Relying partly on the rule of international law that the courts of no land execute the penal laws of another, partly upon the 13th section of the Judiciary Deed of 1789, which vested the Supreme Court with exclusive jurisdiction of controversies of a civil nature where a state is a party, and partly on Justice Iredell's dissent in Chisholm v. Georgia ,48 where he confined the term "controversies" to civil suits, Justice Gray ruled for the Court that for purposes of original jurisdiction, "controversies betwixt a State and citizens of some other Country" are confined to civil suits.49

Ordinarily, a state may not sue in its proper name unless it is the real party in interest with real interests. It can sue to protect its own property interests,l and if it sues for its own interest every bit owner of another land's bonds, rather than every bit an assignee for drove, jurisdiction exists.51 Where a land, in order to avoid the limitation of the Eleventh Subpoena, provided past statute for suit in the proper noun of the country to collect on the bonds of another state held past i of its citizens, it was refused the right to sue.52 Nor can a state sue the citizens of other states on behalf of its own citizens to collect claims.53

i: Warren, The Supreme Court and Disputes Between States, 34 Balderdash. of William and Mary, No. 4 (1940), 7–11. For a more comprehensive handling of background besides equally the general subject, see C. Warren, The Supreme Court and the Sovereign States (1924).
two: Id. at 13. Even so, just three such suits were brought in this menstruation, 1789-1849. During the side by side xc years, 1849-1939, at to the lowest degree twenty-nine such suits were brought. Id. at 13, fourteen.
3: New Bailiwick of jersey v. New York, 30 U.S. (5 Pet.) 284 (1831).
4: Rhode Isle v. Massachusetts, 37 U.Southward. (12 Pet.) 657, 721 (1838).
five: 37 U.S. at 736–37 .
6: 37 U.Southward. at 737 . Chief Justice Taney dissented considering of his belief that the issue was not ane of holding in the soil, just of sovereignty and jurisdiction, and hence political. Id. at 752–53. For different reasons, it should exist noted, a suit between private parties respecting soil or jurisdiction of ii states, to which neither state is a party, does not come within the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. Fowler v. Lindsey, 3 U.Due south. (3 Dall.) 411 (1799). For recent boundary cases, come across United States v. Maine (Rhode Island and New York Purlieus Case), 469 U.S. 504 (1985); United States v. Louisiana (Alabama and Mississippi Purlieus Case), 470 U.Southward. 93 (1985); Us five. Maine, 475 U.S. 89 (1986); Georgia v. Southward Carolina, 497 U.Due south. 336 (1990) ; Mississippi v. Louisiana, 506 U.Due south. 73 (1992).
7: 180 U.S. 208 (1901).
viii: Due east.thou. Montana v. Wyoming, 563 U.S. ___, No. 137, Orig., slip op. (2011) .
9: Meet, e.k., Florida five. Georgia, 585 U.Due south. ___, No. 142, Orig., slip op. at 1 (2018) ( "This instance concerns the proper apportionment of the water of an interstate river bowl. Florida, a downstream Land, brought this lawsuit confronting Georgia, an upstream Country, claiming that Georgia has denied it an equitable share of the basin'south waters." ).
10: 206 U.Southward. 46 (1907). See also Idaho ex rel. Evans v. Oregon and Washington, 444 U.S. 380 (1980).
11: See also Florida, 585 U.S. at ___, slip op. at 10 ( "Where, as hither, the Court is asked to resolve an interstate water dispute raising questions beyond the interpretation of specific language of an interstate compact, the doctrine of equitable apportionment governs our inquiry." (citing Colorado 5. New United mexican states, 459 U.S. 176, 183 (1982); Virginia v. Maryland, 540 U.Southward. 56, 74 n.ix (2003) ( "Federal common law governs interstate bodies of water, ensuring that the water is equitably apportioned between u.s. and bodies of water, ensuring that the water is equitably apportioned between the States and that neither Country harms the other's involvement in the river." ))).
12: 283 U.S. 336 (1931).
13: 283 U.S. at 342 . See also Nebraska v. Wyoming, 325 U.S. 589 (1945); Idaho ex rel. Evans v. Oregon, 462 U.S. 1017 (1983). In Ohio v. Wyandotte Chemicals Corp., 401 U.South. 493 (1971), the Court held it had jurisdiction of a suit by a state confronting citizens of other states to abate a nuisance allegedly caused by the dumping of mercury into streams that ultimately run into Lake Erie, but it declined to permit the filing because the presence of circuitous scientific problems made the case more advisable for outset resolution in a district court. Meet also Texas v. New Mexico, 462 U.S. 554 (1983); Nevada five. United States, 463 U.S. 110 (1983).
14: South Dakota 5. North Carolina, 192 U.S. 286 (1904).
fifteen: Virginia v. West Virginia, 220 U.S. i (1911).
xvi: Arkansas v. Texas, 346 U.South. 368 (1953).
17: Kentucky v. Indiana, 281 U.Southward. 163 (1930).
18: Texas v. Florida, 306 U.Southward. 398 (1939). In California v. Texas, 437 U.Due south. 601 (1978), the Courtroom denied a country leave to file an original action against another country to determine the contested habitation of a decedent for death taxation purposes, with several Justices of the view that Texas v. Florida had either been wrongly decided or was questionable. Just, subsequently determining that an interpleader activeness past the administrator of the estate for a determination of domicile was barred by the Eleventh Amendment, Cory v. White, 457 U.S. 85 (1982), the Courtroom over dissent permitted filing of the original activity. California 5. Texas, 457 U.S. 164 (1982).
nineteen: Pennsylvania v. West Virginia, 262 U.S. 553 (1923). The Court, in Maryland five. Louisiana, 451 U.S. 725 (1981), over strong dissent, relied on this case in permitting suit contesting a tax imposed on natural gas, the incidence of which barbarous on the suing country's consuming citizens. And, in Wyoming five. Oklahoma, 502 U.Southward. 437 (1992), the Courtroom permitted a state to sue another to contest a law requiring that all in-state utilities burn a mixture containing at least 10% in-state coal, the plaintiff land having previously supplied 100% of the coal to those utilities and thus suffering a loss of coal-severance revenue enhancement revenues.
20: 585 U.S. ___, No. 142, Orig., slip op. at 10 (2018) . Specifically, when asked to resolve such a dispute under the doctrine of equitable apportionment, the Courtroom should consider the following principles: (1) that the two states "possess an equal correct to make a reasonable use of the waters of the stream" ; (2) that "the Courtroom's 'effort e'er is to secure an equitable apportionment without quibbling over formulas' . . . [and w]hither '[b]oth States accept real and substantial interests in the River,' those interests 'must be reconciled as best they may exist'" ; (iii) that, "in light of the sovereign status and 'equal dignity' of States, . . . the complaining Country must demonstrate that it has suffered a 'threatened invasion of rights' that is 'of serious magnitude'" ; and (iv) that "where a complaining State meets its 'initial brunt of showing 'existent or substantial injury,' this Court, recalling that equitable apportionment is 'flexible,' not 'formulaic,' will seek to 'get in at a just and equitable apportionment of an interstate stream' past 'consider[ing] 'all relevant factors.'" Id. at eleven–14 (citations omitted).
21: Id. at 1–ii.
22: Id. at 14.
23: Id. at 15.
24: Id. at 37 (quoting Idaho ex rel. Evans five. Oregon, 462 U.S. 1017, 1026 (1983); Virginia 5. West Virginia, 220 U.Due south. 1, 27 (1911)).
25: 379 U.S. 674 (1965). See also Pennsylvania v. New York, 407 U.S. 206 (1972).
26: 37 U.South. (12 Pet.) 657 (1838).
27: 19 U.Due south. (6 Wheat.) 264 (1821).
28: xix U.Due south. at 378 . See Western Union Tel. Co. v. Pennsylvania, 368 U.S. 71, 79–fourscore (1961); Texas five. New Bailiwick of jersey, 379 U.S. 674, 677 (1965); Pennsylvania 5. New York, 407 U.S. 206 (1972).
29: 291 U.S. 286 (1934). The Court in contempo years, with a pregnant caseload problem, has been loath to let filings of original actions where the parties might exist able to resolve their disputes in other courts, even in cases in which the jurisdiction over the particular dispute is exclusively original. Arizona v. New Mexico, 425 U.Southward. 794 (1976) (dispute discipline of state courtroom example brought by individual parties); California v. W Virginia, 454 U.Southward. 1027 (1981) . But in Mississippi v. Louisiana, 506 U.S. 73 (1992), the Court's reluctance to practice original jurisdiction ran afoul of the "uncompromising language" of 28 U.s.a.C. § 1251(a) giving the Court "original and sectional jurisdiction" of these kinds of suits.
30: Massachusetts v. Missouri, 308 U.S. ane, 15–16, (1939), citing Florida v. Mellon, 273 U.South. 12 (1927).
31: 306 U.Due south. 398 (1939).
32: 308 U.S. at 17 , citing Oklahoma 5. Atchison, T. & S.F. Ry., 220 U.S. 277, 286 (1911), and Oklahoma ex rel. Johnson v. Cook, 304 U.S. 387, 394 (1938). See besides New Hampshire v. Louisiana and New York v. Louisiana, 108 U.S. 76 (1883), which held that a land cannot bring a suit on behalf of its citizens to collect on bonds issued past another country, and Louisiana 5. Texas, 176 U.S. 1 (1900), which held that a state cannot sue another to preclude maladministration of quarantine laws.
33: 308 U.Southward. at 17, nineteen .
34: Kansas five. Nebraska, 574 U.South. ___, No. 126, Orig., sideslip op. at 14–17 (2015) . Equity is "the system of constabulary or body of principles originating in the English Court of Chancery." Black's Constabulary Lexicon 656 (10th ed. 2014). Persons who sought equitable relief "sought to do justice in cases for which there was no adequate remedy at common constabulary," A.H. Manchester, Mod Legal History of England and Wales, 1750-1950 135-36 (1980), i.e., cases in which the English language courts of law could beget no relief to a plaintiff. While eventually courts of law and courts providing equitable relief merged into a single court in nigh jurisdictions, an equitable remedy refers to a remedy that disinterestedness courts would have historically granted. Meet i Dan B. Dobbs, Dobbs Law Of Remedies: Damages - Equity - Restitution § two.ane(two), at 59–61 (second ed. 1993). Compensatory damages are a classic "legal" remedy, whereas an injunction is a archetype "equitable" remedy. See Richard L. Hasen, Remedies 141 (2d ed. 2010).
35: See Kansas, sideslip op. at eight (quoting Texas 5. New Mexico, 462 U.Due south. 554, 567 (1983)).
36: Id.
37: Id.
38: two U.South. (two Dall.) 419 (1793).
39: See the discussion under the Eleventh Amendment.
40: Massachusetts five. Mellon, 262 U.S. 447 (1923); Florida 5. Mellon, 273 U.Due south. 12 (1927); New Jersey v. Sargent, 269 U.Due south. 328 (1926).
41: Pennsylvania 5. Quicksilver Co., 77 U.South. (10 Wall.) 553 (1871); California v. Southern Pacific Co., 157 U.S. 229 (1895); Minnesota v. Northern Securities Co., 184 U.S. 199 (1902).
42: Wisconsin v. Pelican Ins. Co., 127 U.S. 265 (1888).
43: 19 U.S. (6 Wheat.) 264, 398–99 (1821).
44: Pennsylvania v. Quicksilver Mining Co., 77 U.S. (10 Wall.) 553 (1871).
45: California v. Southern Pacific Co., 157 U.S. 229 (1895); Minnesota 5. Northern Securities Co., 184 U.Southward. 199 (1902).
46: xix U.Due south. (6 Wheat.) at 398–99 .
47: 127 U.S. 265 (1888).
48: 2 U.S. (2 Dall.) 419, 431–32 (1793).
49: 127 U.S. at 289–300 .
50: Pennsylvania v. Wheeling & B. Span Co., 54 U.S. (xiii How.) 518, 559 (1852); Oklahoma ex rel. Johnson v. Cook, 304 U.S. 387 (1938); Georgia v. Evans, 316 U.South. 159 (1942).
51: Southward Dakota five. North Carolina, 192 U.S. 286 (1904).
52: New Hampshire v. Louisiana, 108 U.S. 76 (1883).
53: Oklahoma ex rel. Johnson five. Cook, 304 U.S. 387 (1938).