Article III, Section 2, Clause 1:

The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;—to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;—to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction; to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;—to Controversies between two or more States; between a State and Citizens of another State, between Citizens of different States,—between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.

In 2015, the Court, noting that proceedings under its original jurisdiction are “basically equitable,” 1 took the view that its enforcement authority encompasses ordering disgorgement of part of one state’s gain from its breach of an interstate compact, as well as reforming certain agreements adopted by the states.2 In so doing, the Court emphasized that its enforcement authority derives both from its “inherent authority” to apportion interstate streams between states equitably and from Congress’s approval of interstate compacts.3 As to its inherent authority, the Court noted that states bargain for water rights “in the shadow of” the Court’s broad power to apportion them equitably and it is “difficult to conceive” that a state would agree to enter an agreement as to water rights if the Court lacked the power to enforce the agreement.4 The Court similarly reasoned that its remedial authority “gains still greater force” because a compact between the states, “having received Congress’s blessing, counts as federal law.” 5 The Court stated, however, that an interstate compact’s “legal status” as federal law could also limit the Court’s enforcement power because the Court cannot order relief that is inconsistent with a compact’s express terms.6

Footnotes

1

Kansas v. Nebraska, 574 U.S. 445, 451 (2015).

2

Kansas, 574 U.S. at 461–64 Equity is “the system of law or body of principles originating in the English Court of Chancery.” Equity, Black’s Law Dictionary 656 (10th ed. 2014). Persons who sought equitable relief “sought to do justice in cases for which there was no adequate remedy at common law,” A.H. Manchester, Modern Legal History of England and Wales, 1750–1950, at 135–36 (1980), i.e., cases in which the English courts of law could afford no relief to a plaintiff. While eventually courts of law and courts providing equitable relief merged into a single court in most jurisdictions, an equitable remedy refers to a remedy that equity courts would have historically granted. See 1 Dan B. Dobbs, Dobbs Law of Remedies: Damages - Equity - Restitution § 2.1(2), at 59–61 (2d ed. 1993). Compensatory damages are a classic “legal” remedy, whereas an injunction is a classic “equitable” remedy. See Richard L. Hasen, Remedies 141 (2d ed. 2010).

3

Id. at 454–55.

4

See Kansas, 574 U.S. at 455 (quoting Texas v. New Mexico, 462 U.S. 554, 569 (1983)).

5

Id.

6

Id.