Missouri v. Fiske, 290 U.S. 18 (1933)

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Missouri v. Fiske

No. 27

Argued October 18, 1933
Decided November 6, 1933
290 U.S. 18

CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

Syllabus

1. A state may waive, by appearing, its immunity as a sovereign from being sued by individuals. P. 24.

2. But an intervention in a suit pending in a federal court, limited to a request of the state that securities involved in that suit be not distributed but be held in the registry until a claim of the state in regard to them may be adjudicated in a proceeding begun by the state in its own court, is not such an appearance as will subject the state to a litigation of the claim in the federal court. P. 25.

3. The Eleventh Amendment is an explicit limitation upon the judicial power of the United states, and applies to equitable demands and remedies as well as to suits for money judgments. Pp. 25, 27.

4. Even for the protection of its own decree, and of property rights thereby determined quasi in rem, a federal court cannot entertain a supplemental and ancillary bill against a state which has not appeared in the litigation and does not consent to be sued. P. 27.

5. The claim that a decree of a federal court adjudicating the ownership of private property estops the state, though not a party, from reopening the question in later inheritance tax proceedings in its own court, and that the decree should be given that effect as a matter of federal right, can be set up in the state courts, and if it be here finally denied, the decision may be reviewable by this Court. P. 29.

62 F.2d 150 reversed.

Certiorari, 289 U.S. 720, to review the reversal of a decree dismissing a bill against the State of Missouri to enjoin it from prosecution of a proceeding in the Probate Court. The Attorney General and other law officials of the state were joined as defendants in the courts below. One of these, Miller, Circuit Attorney, joined with the state in petitioning for certiorari.