Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 426.0

Cite as: 558 U. S. 256 (2010) 

265 

Opinion of the Court 

to  protect  their  rights  in  contested  land.  See,  e. g.,  Okla­
homa  v.  Texas,  254  U. S.  609  (1920).3  More  recently,  the 
Court has allowed a municipality to intervene in a sovereign 
boundary dispute, see Texas v.  Louisiana, 426 U. S. 465, 466 
(1976) (per curiam), and has permitted private corporations 
to  intervene  in  an  original  action  challenging  a  State’s  im­
position  of  a  tax  that  burdened  interstate  commerce  and 
contravened  the  Supremacy  Clause,  see  Maryland  v.  Lou­
isiana, supra, at 745, n. 21. 

In this case, the Special Master crafted a rule of interven­
tion  that  accounts  for  the  full  compass  of  our  precedents. 
But  a  compelling  reason  for  allowing  citizens  to  participate 
in  one  original  action  is  not  necessarily  a  compelling reason 
for allowing citizens to intervene in all original actions.  We 
therefore  decline  to  adopt  the  Special  Master’s  proposed 
rule.  As  the  Special  Master  acknowledged,  the  Court  in 
New  Jersey  v.  New  York,  supra,  set  down  the  “appropriate 
standard”  for  intervention  in  original  actions  by  nonstate 
entities.  First  Interim  Rept.  12.  We  believe  the  standard 
that we applied in that case applies equally well here.4 

In  1929,  the  State  of  New  Jersey  sued  the  State  of  New 
York  and  city  of  New  York  for  their  diversion  of  the  Dela­

3 The  Chief  Justice  argues  against  drawing  conclusions  from  the  in­
tervention  that  we  allowed  in  Oklahoma  v.  Texas,  254  U. S.  609  (1920). 
See post, at 283 (opinion concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in 
part).  But  the  circumstances  surrounding  that  dispute  ﬁt  the  “ ‘model 
case’ ” for invoking this Court’s original jurisdiction, post, at 277, and coun­
sel  against  inferring  from  our  precedents,  as  The  Chief  Justice  does 
with  respect  to  equitable  apportionment  actions,  a  rule  against  nonstate 
intervention in such “weighty controversies,” ibid. 

4 Accordingly, we need not decide South Carolina’s ﬁrst exception to the 
Special  Master’s  conclusion  that  intervention  is  proper  “whenever  the 
movant is the ‘instrumentality’ authorized to engage in conduct alleged to 
harm the plaintiff State, has an ‘independent property interest’ at issue in 
the action, or otherwise has a ‘direct stake’ in the outcome of the action.” 
Exceptions  of  State  of  South  Carolina  to  First  Interim  Report  of  Special 
Master and Brief in Support of Exceptions i.