Principality of Monaco v. Mississippi

Supreme Court of the United States · 1934 · Federal Courts

Federal CourtsState sovereign immunityOriginal jurisdictionForeign statesArticle IIIEleventh Amendmentstate sovereign immunityforeign state

Facts

Monaco sought to sue Mississippi on Planters' Bank and Union Bank bonds issued by Mississippi in the 1830s. The proposed declaration alleged that the bonds were transferred to Monaco in Paris in 1933 as an absolute gift by donors whose families had purchased them when issued and who stated they had been advised that only a foreign government or a state could maintain suit on the bonds. Mississippi objected on several grounds, including that it had not consented to be sued and that the action attempted to evade constitutional limits on suits against states. The Court treated as decisive the question whether a foreign state may sue a state of the Union without that state's consent.

Issue

Does Article III permit the Supreme Court to entertain an original suit brought by a foreign state against a state of the Union when the defendant state has not consented to be sued? More specifically, did the constitutional plan surrender state sovereign immunity in favor of foreign states?

Rule

A state of the Union is immune from suit without its consent unless there has been a surrender of that immunity in the constitutional plan. That surrender exists for suits by other states of the Union and by the United States, but not for suits by foreign states; therefore, Article III does not authorize a foreign state to sue a nonconsenting state.

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One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

The Republic of Arvendia, a recognized foreign nation, files an original action in the Supreme Court against the State of Ohio seeking payment on infrastructure notes Ohio issued decades earlier. Ohio appears only to state that it has not consented to suit.

Should the Supreme Court permit the action to proceed?

Explanation. The action should not proceed. The governing rule is that a state may not be sued without its consent unless the constitutional plan surrendered immunity for that class of plaintiff. The majority held that such surrender exists for suits by sister states and by the United States, but not for suits by foreign states. A literal reading of Article III, and the Eleventh Amendment's silence about foreign-state plaintiffs, do not overcome retained state sovereign immunity.