Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-404_i5ea.pdf
Page Number: 7.0

4 

UNITED STATES v. WASHINGTON 

Opinion of the Court 

p. 437.  This new law, Washington argues, does not discrim-
inate against the Federal Government, and its enactment 
thus moots the present dispute.

A case is not moot, however, unless “ ‘it is impossible for 
[us] to grant any effectual relief.’ ”  Mission Product Hold-
ings, Inc. v. Tempnology, LLC, 587 U. S. ___, ___ (2019) (slip 
op.,  at  6)  (quoting  Chafin  v.  Chafin,  568  U. S.  165,  172 
(2013)).  If  there  is  money  at  stake,  the  case  is  not  moot.
See 587 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 6).  The United States as-
serts  that,  if  we  rule  in  its  favor,  it  will  either  recoup  or
avoid paying between $17 million and $37 million in work-
ers’  compensation  claims  that  lower  courts  have  awarded 
under the earlier law.  See Response in Opposition to Sug-
gestion  of  Mootness  11–12.    Some  of  these  claims  are  not 
yet final because they are still on appeal.  See Reply in Sup-
port of Suggestion of Mootness 12.  Washington argues that, 
even if the United States wins, the Government will not re-
cover or avoid any payments because the new statute ap-
plies  retroactively  and  is  broad  enough  to  encompass  any 
claim filed under the earlier law.  But it is not our practice
to interpret statutes in the first instance, Zivotofsky v. Clin-
ton, 566 U. S. 189, 201 (2012), and we decline to do so here 
by  deciding  the  retroactivity  or  breadth  of  Washington’s
new law.  Nor do we know how Washington’s state courts
will resolve these questions.  It is thus not “impossible” that 
the United States will recover money if we rule in its favor, 
and this case is not moot. 

III 
A 
In  McCulloch  v.  Maryland,  4  Wheat.  316  (1819),  this
Court  held  unconstitutional  Maryland’s  effort  to  tax  the 
Bank of the United States when Maryland imposed no com-
parable tax on any other bank within the State.  Id., at 425– 
437.  Chief Justice John Marshall explained that, under the 
Supremacy Clause, “the States have no power, by taxation