Supreme Court Decides States May Not Be Sued in Other States’ Courts

The Supreme Court building in Washington on May 7, 2019. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

WASHINGTON—At the urging of California and 45 other states, the Supreme Court has overturned a 40-year-old precedent that allowed states to be sued in the courts of other states.

The 5–4 decision on May 13 pitted the court’s conservative and liberal wings against each other. The conservatives voted to overturn a landmark 1979 decision known as Nevada v. Hall because, in their view, the states’ “sovereign immunity is a historically rooted principle embedded in the text and structure of the Constitution.”