The federal Constitution allows states to make enforceable contracts with each other, and then authorizes the Supreme Court itself to serve as the trial court for any enforcement lawsuits between themselves.[1] In one such lawsuit, Texas v. New Mexico, decided on June 21, 2024, the Court sustained the federal government’s objection to a lawsuit settlement between the party-states of Texas and New Mexico, on the ground their settlement would impair the rights claimed by the federal government under the same contract those two states had signed. The federal government had previously intervened in the states’ lawsuit with the Court’s permission. The vote on the Court to sustain the federal government’s objection to the states’ settlement was 5-4. Justices Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, and Barrett emphatically dissented on case-specific grounds, but nevertheless complaining about a perceived interference with states’ rights in general.
COMMENT: Federal trial courts generally have some flexibility and discretion in dealing with litigants who want to intervene, or who have already intervened, in lawsuits between other parties.[2] In this case, the federal government had intervened, with the Court’s permission, to support the original contract claims of Texas against New Mexico. In the states’ compromise settlement agreement, Texas gave up some of its claimed contract rights in a manner the federal government did not like. The federal government then claimed that that compromise would prejudice its own rights under the contract, something that it never signed. However, because the contract specifically and directly involved the federal government in its execution, the Court’s decision to allow the case to continue under the direction of the federal government as a separate plaintiff was not an abuse of the Court’s unreviewable discretion in matters of intervention. However, a decision going the other way, sustaining the states’ settlement in full, also would not have been an abuse of the Court’s inherent discretion to deal with intervening parties. Dan Rhea
[1] U.S. Const., Art. I, § 10, third sentence, Cl. 3; Art. III, § 2, third sentence.
[2] For example, see Fed.R.Civ.P. 24 (not technically applicable in the Supreme Court when sitting as a trial court).
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