State of New Hampshire v. State of Maine (532 U.S. 742)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided May 29, 2001 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 532 U.S. 742 · 121 S. Ct. 1808
- Decided
- May 29, 2001
- Term
- October Term 2000
- Vote
- 8–0
- Majority author
- Justice Ginsburg
- Issue area
- Interstate Relations
- Disposition
- Petition denied or appeal dismissed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Unspecifiable
Opinion excerpt
Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the Court. The Piscataqua River lies at the southeastern end of New Hampshire’s boundary with Maine. The river begins at the headwaters of Salmon Falls and runs seaward into Portsmouth Harbor (also known as' Piscataqua Harbor). On March 6, 2000, New Hampshire brought this original action against Maine, claiming that the Piscataqua River boundary runs along the Maine shore and that the entire river and all of Portsmouth Harbor belong to New Hampshire. Maine has filed a motion to dismiss on the ground that two prior proceedings — a 1740 boundary determination by King George II and a 1977 consent judgment entered by this Court — definitively fixed the Piscataqua River boundary at the middle of the river’s main channel of navigation. The 1740 decree located the Piscataqua River boundary at the “Middle of the River.” Because New Hampshire, in the 1977 proceeding, agreed without reservation that the words “Middle of the River” mean the middle of the Pis-cataqua River’s main channel of navigation, we conclude that New Hampshire is estopped from asserting now that the boundary runs along the Maine shore. Accordingly, we grant Maine’s motion to dismiss the complaint. I New Hampshire and Maine share a border that runs from northwest to southeast. At the southeastern end of the border, the easternmost point of New Hampshire meets the…
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