Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-3/section-2/clause-1/cases-to-which-the-united-states-is-a-party
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 14:22:24+00:00

Document:
Right of the United States to Sue.
Immunity of the United States From Suit.
Pursuant to the general rule that a sovereign cannot be sued in its own courts, the judicial power does not extend to suits against the United States unless Congress by statute consents to such suits. This rule first emanated in embryonic form in an obiter dictum by Chief Justice Jay in Chisholm v. Georgia, where he indicated that a suit would not lie against the United States because “there is no power which the courts can call to their aid.”1011 In Cohens v. Virginia,1012 also in dictum, Chief Justice Marshall asserted, “the universally received opinion is that no suit can be commenced or prosecuted against the United States.” The issue was more directly in question in United States v. Clarke,1013 where Chief Justice Marshall stated that, as the United States is “not suable of common right, the party who institutes such suit must bring his case within the authority of some act of Congress, or the court cannot exercise jurisdiction over it.” He thereupon ruled that the act of May 26, 1830, for the final settlement of land claims in Florida condoned the suit. The doctrine of the exemption of the United States from suit was repeated in various subsequent cases, without discussion or examination.1014 Indeed, it was not until United States v. Lee1015 that the Court examined the rule and the reasons for it, and limited its application accordingly.
Suits Against United States Officials.
United States v. Lee, a 5-to-4 decision, qualified earlier holdings that a judgment affecting the property of the United States was in effect against the United States, by ruling that title to the Arlington estate of the Lee family, then being used as a national cemetery, was not legally vested in the United States but was being held illegally by army officers under an unlawful order of the President. In its examination of the sources and application of the rule of sovereign immunity, the Court concluded that the rule “if not absolutely limited to cases in which the United States are made defendants by name, is not permitted to interfere with the judicial enforcement of the rights of plaintiff when the United States is not a defendant or a necessary party to the suit.”1021 Except, nevertheless, for an occasional case like Kansas v. United States,1022 which held that a state cannot sue the United States, most of the cases involving sovereign immunity from suit since 1883 have been cases against officers, agencies, or corporations of the United States where the United States has not been named as a party defendant. Thus, it has been held that a suit against the Secretary of the Treasury to review his decision on the rate of duty to be exacted on imported sugar would disturb the whole revenue system of the government and would in effect be a suit against the United States.1023 Even more significant is Stanley v. Schwalby,1024 holding that an action of trespass against an army officer to try title in a parcel of land occupied by the United States as a military reservation was a suit against the United States because a judgment in favor of the plaintiffs would have been a judgment against the United States.
Subsequent cases reaffirm the rule of United States v. Lee that, where the right to possession or enjoyment of property under general law is in issue, the fact that defendants claim the property as officers or agents of the United States does not make the action one against the United States until it is determined that they were acting within the scope of their lawful authority.1025 On the other hand, the rule that a suit in which the judgment would affect the United States or its property is a suit against the United States has also been repeatedly approved and reaffirmed.1026 But, as the Court has pointed out, it is not “an easy matter to reconcile all of the decisions of the court in this class of cases,”1027 and, as Justice Frankfurter quite justifiably stated in a dissent, “the subject is not free from casuistry.”1028 Justice Douglas’ characterization of Land v. Dollar, “this is the type of case where the question of jurisdiction is dependent on decision of the merits,”1029 is frequently applicable.
Suits against officers involving the doctrine of sovereign immunity have been classified into four general groups by Justice Frankfurter. First, there are those cases in which the plaintiff seeks an interest in property which belongs to the government or calls “for an assertion of what is unquestionably official authority.”1034 Such suits, of course, cannot be maintained.1035 Second, cases in which action adverse to the interests of a plaintiff is taken under an unconstitutional statute or one alleged to be so. In general these suits are maintainable.1036 Third, cases involving injury to a plaintiff because the official has exceeded his statutory authority. In general these suits are maintainable.1037 Fourth, cases in which an officer seeks immunity behind statutory authority or some other sovereign command for the commission of a common law tort.1038 This category of cases presents the greatest difficulties because these suits can as readily be classified as falling into the first group if the action directly or indirectly is one for specific performance or if the judgment would affect the United States.

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