Suits Between Two or More States

Suits Between Two or More States

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 party had its origin in experience. Prior to independence, disputes between colonies claiming charter rights to territory were settled by the Privy Council. Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress was made “the last resort on appeal” to resolve “all disputes and differences… between two or more States concerning boundary, jurisdiction, or any other cause whatever,” and to constitute 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 only state disputes coming to the Supreme Court were boundary disputes 2 or that such disputes constitute the largest single number of suits between states. Since 1900, however, as the result of the increasing mobility of population and wealth and the effects of technology and industrialization, other types of cases have occurred with increasing frequency.

Suits Between Two or More States and the U.S. Constitution

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This text about Suits Between Two or More States is based on “The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation”, published by the U.S. Government Printing Office.

Notes

[Footnote 1] Warren, The Supreme Court and Disputes Between States, 34 BULL. OF WILLIAM AND MARY, NO. 4 (1940), 7-11. For a more comprehensive treatment of background as well as the general subject, see C. WARREN, THE SUPREME COURT AND THE SOVEREIGN STATES (1924).

[Footnote 2] Id. at 13. However, only three such suits were brought in this period, 1789-1849. During the next 90 years, 1849-1939, at least twenty-nine such suits were brought. Id. at 13, 14.