Citations 148 U.S. 503 (more) Date decided 1893 | Majority Field | |
Full case name Commonwealth of Virginia v. State of Tennessee | ||
Virginia v. Tennessee, 148 U.S. 503 (1893), was a decision of the United States Supreme Court, which had two questions: (1) What is the correct boundary between the two states and, if the boundary was inaccurately set, can the state ask the court to change it? (2) Does an agreement setting the boundary between two states require approval of Congress under the Compact Clause of the Constitution of the United States?
When two states have a controversy between each other, the case is filed for original jurisdiction with the United States Supreme Court. This is one of the very limited circumstances where the court acts as original jurisdiction (i.e. a trial court) although as the suit was at equity rather than law, no jury was impaneled (if either side had even wanted one in the first place). In all other cases, the court acts as the highest level appellate court in the United States.
The court decided that if a prior agreement between the two states set the boundary, and both states ratify that agreement, if one of them discovers later that the boundary was wrong (e.g. the other state received a larger share of territory than originally planned) in the absence of the other state agreeing to change it, then the original agreement stands.
As to what represents a compact requiring approval from Congress, it is those types of agreements that would, in some fashion, increase the power of a state. If a state, for example, wanted to send an exhibit to a World's Fair in another state, it would not have to have approval of Congress to contract to use a canal owned by another state that its exhibit or its people had to pass through along the way.
Where a compact or agreement between two states does require congressional approval, such approval may be implied, such as if a state sends information to Congress about an agreement, and Congress accepts and records the details. Approval may be requested in advance, or, for a type of compact where the details could not be known before the compact was ratified, after the compact is created.
The court decided that because the states informed Congress of the original survey that both states hired people to carefully establish, and subsequently enacted as legislation by the two states, the agreement was implicitly approved by Congress, and the border between the two states was that which was set forth in the survey.