LOUISIANA
v.
MISSISSIPPI ET AL.

U.S. | 1988-12-12
Nos. 114, Orig.
Justice Stevens and Justice SCALIA join, dissenting.
488 U.S. 990 Supreme Court of the United States (1988) Positive Treatment
Cited by 3 cases
Dissent
Justice White,

Justice White,

with whom

Justice Stevens and Justice SCALIA join, dissenting.

Louisiana’s complaint against Mississippi is plainly within our original jurisdiction and alleges a boundary dispute with Mississippi, the very kind of a dispute that countless times the Court has accepted and adjudicated under its original jurisdiction. Furthermore, as 28 U. S. C. § 1251(a) prescribes, the Court has exclusive jurisdiction over controversies between States. No other court may entertain Louisiana’s complaint against Mississippi.

It is true that Louisiana intervened in a dispute between private parties over the ownership of land on an island in the Mississippi River, claiming that the land was in’ that State. That suit might settle the dispute among the parties and the State, but a judgment that the island is in Louisiana,would not bind Mississippi. For that reason, I suppose, Louisiana filed a third-party complaint against Mississippi and also sought leave to file an original action in this Court. We prefer to have disputes within our original jurisdiction settled in other fora where possible. See, e. g., Arizona v. New Mexico, 425 U. S. 794 (1976). But this boundary dispute between two States is exclusively our business and, as such, may not be adjudicated in the District Court. Had Louisiana not intervened in the private action, denying leave to file would surely be indefensible. Perhaps denial of leave to file rests on the possibility that the private action will go forward with Louisiana as a party and that a judgment unfavorable to, but binding on, Louisiana will be entered. For me, however, this is no way to treat a sovereign State that wants its dispute with another State settled in this Court. I would grant leave to file.

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  • Mississippi v. Louisiana, 506 U.S. 73 (U.S. 1992)
    …vate parties: “Houston brought the suit to establish the boundary line to their land. It is incidental that the boundary line is also alleged to be the State line.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 86a. [*75] We denied leave to file, Louisiana v. Mississippi, 488 U. S. 990 (1988). The District Court thereafter found that the thalweg, frozen by an avulsive shift in the river, was to the west of the disputed land and thus placed it within Mississippi. Alternatively, the District Court concluded that the disputed land w…
  • Delaware v. New York, 507 U.S. 490 (U.S. 1993)
    …certain of these securities were wrongfully escheated, Delaware sought leave in 1988 to initiate an original action in this Court against [*497] New York. We granted leave to file the complaint, 486 U. S. 1030 (1988), and appointed a Special Master, 488 U. S. 990 (1988). We granted Texas’ motion to file a complaint as an intervening plaintiff, 489 U. S. 1005 (1989), and every State not already a party to this proceeding and the District of Columbia sought leave to intervene. On January 28, 1992, the Master…
  • Louisiana v. Mississippi, 516 U.S. 22 (U.S. 1995)
    …jurisdiction of the District Court to hear its matter, Louisiana took the further step of instituting an original action in this Court, and it filed a motion here for leave to file a bill of complaint. We denied the motion. Louisiana v. Mississippi, 488 U. S. 990 (1988). The District Court heard the case pending before it and, in an order by Judge Barbour, ruled in favor of Mississippi. Louisiana, however, prevailed in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, 937 F. 2d 247 (1991), and we gr…

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