WASHINGTON, DC – Following today’s decision at the Supreme Court in Galette v. New Jersey Transit Corp. and New Jersey Transit Corp. v. Colt, cases in which the Court considered whether state-affiliated corporations have sovereign immunity, Constitutional Accountability Center (CAC) Legal Fellow Harith Khawaja issued the following reaction:

Today, the Supreme Court unanimously held that the New Jersey Transit Corporation is not an arm of the state and hence cannot claim the state’s sovereign immunity from suit. In doing so, the Court echoed the reasoning of our amicus brief, which explained that when the Constitution was ratified, corporations were considered separate legal entities from the states that created them, and therefore could be sued for harms they caused.

Justice Sotomayor’s opinion for the Court cited the same early-nineteenth-century cases that our brief identified, most notably those holding that state-created corporate banks could be sued even though states retained significant control over them. And in setting forth a framework for resolving these types of cases, the Court recognized the central importance of the state’s choice to create a legally separate entity using the corporate form.

As a practical matter, today’s decision permits suits by individuals struck and injured by the New Jersey Transit Corporation’s buses in New York and Pennsylvania to proceed. That is a victory for access to justice.