Government Entity v. Government Entity
State and local governments may sue one another to address laws or actions deemed harmful to the plaintiff government and its residents. Recall, for example, the case of Cleveland v. the State of Ohio, discussed in Chapter 2, where the state preempted the ability of local jurisdictions to regulate food service operations in order to overturn Cleveland’s trans fat ban; the city successfully sued the state for violating its grant of Home Rule authority.[1]
Sometimes a state sues another state when it determines that a law passed by the defendant state will hurt the plaintiff state. These lawsuits are brought and defended through the states’ attorneys general. State attorneys general may bring an action against another state pursuant to their parens patriae authority to assert the “quasi-sovereign interests” of their state, as discussed in Chapter 1. In these cases, the states’ claims are related to vindicating the physical and economic health and well-being “of its residents in general.”[2]
In Missouri v. Harris, several states, through their attorneys general, sued California for banning the sale of shelled eggs within California if the producers or handlers do not abide by a California law containing specific provisions aimed at preventing salmonella contamination and regulating the confinement of egg-laying hens.[3] The law applies to egg farmers within and outside of the state and the states that sued each have residents who are egg farmers and sell their eggs in California. The federal district court that heard the case found that the attorneys general did not assert a quasi-sovereign interest because the only parties that could potentially be injured by California’s law are the egg farmers subject to the law, and not the broader residents within the plaintiff states. The court dismissed the case stating that the plaintiffs were not bringing the action on behalf of a substantial segment of the population and thus they did not have a unique interest apart from that of the egg farmers themselves. Therefore, the court found that the state attorneys general lacked standing, and it dismissed the case on procedural grounds without examining the substantive complaints regarding the law. The egg farmers may choose to sue separately.
