State of South Carolina v. State of North Carolina (558 U.S. 256)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided January 20, 2010 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 558 U.S. 256 · 130 S. Ct. 854
- Decided
- January 20, 2010
- Term
- October Term 2009
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Alito
- Issue area
- Interstate Relations
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Unspecifiable
Opinion excerpt
Justice Alito delivered the opinion of the Court. The State of South Carolina brought this original action against the State of North Carolina, seeking an equitable apportionment of the Catawba River. We appointed a Special Master and referred the matter to her, together with the motions of three nonstate entities seeking to intervene in the dispute as parties. South Carolina opposed the motions. After holding a hearing, the Special Master granted the motions and, upon South Carolina’s request, memorialized the reasons for her decision in a First Interim Report. South Carolina then presented exceptions, and we set the matter for argument. Two of the three proposed intervenors have satisfied the standard for intervention in original actions that we articulated nearly 60 years ago in New Jersey v. New York, 345 U. S. 369 (1953) (per curiam). Accordingly, we overrule South Carolina’s exceptions with respect to the Catawba River Water Supply Project (hereinafter CRWSP) and Duke Energy Carolinas, LLC (hereinafter Duke Energy), but we sustain South Carolina’s exception with respect to the city of Charlotte, North Carolina (hereinafter Charlotte). I A We granted leave for South Carolina to file its complaint in this matter two years ago. South Carolina v. North Carolina, 552 U. S. 804 (2007). The gravamen of the complaint is that North Carolina has authorized upstream transfers of…
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