Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 424

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

263 

Opinion of the Court 

B 

The  Special  Master  held  a  hearing  and  issued  an  order 
granting all three motions for leave to intervene.  At South 
Carolina’s request, the Special Master  set forth her ﬁndings 
and decision as a First Interim Report, and it is this Report 
to which South Carolina now presents exceptions. 

The  Special  Master  recognized  that  this  Court  has  exer­
cised  jurisdiction  over  nonstate  parties  in  original  actions 
between  two  or  more  States.  She  also  recognized  that  in 
New Jersey v.  New York, 345 U. S. 369, the Court considered 
the  “appropriate  standard”  for  a  nonstate  entity’s  motion  to 
intervene  in  an  original  action.  First  Interim  Report  of 
Special Master, O. T. 2008, No. 138, Orig., p. 12 (First Interim 
Rept.).  But  in  attempting  to  give  context  to  our  standard, 
she  looked  beyond  intervention  and  considered  original  ac­
tions in which the Court has allowed nonstate entities to be 
named as defendants by the complaining State.  From those 
examples,  the  Special  Master  “distilled  the  following  rule” 
governing  motions  to  intervene  in  original  actions  by  non-
state entities: 

“Although  the  Court’s  original  jurisdiction  presump­
tively is reserved for disputes between sovereign states 
over  sovereign  matters,  non-state  entities  may  become 
parties to such original disputes in appropriate and com­
pelling  circumstances,  such  as  where  the  non-state  en­
tity  is  the  instrumentality  authorized  to  carry  out  the 
wrongful  conduct  or  injury  for  which  the  complaining 
state  seeks relief,  where  the non-state  entity  has an  in­
dependent  property  interest  that  is  directly  implicated 
by  the  original  dispute  or  is  a  substantial  factor  in  the 
dispute,  where  the  non-state  entity otherwise  has  a  ‘di­
rect stake’ in the outcome of the action within the mean­
ing  of  the  Court’s  cases  discussed  above,  or  where,  to­
gether with one or more of the above circumstances, the