Commonwealth of Virginia v. State of West Virginia

• Decision Date: 08 June 1914
• Docket Number: No. 2,O,2
• Citation: 34 S.Ct. 889,58 L.Ed. 1243,234 U.S. 117
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA v. STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA. riginal
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

234 U.S. 117

34 S.Ct. 889

58 L.Ed. 1243

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA

v STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA.

No. 2, Original.

Argued April 16, 17, 1914.

Decided June 8, 1914.

Mr. A. A. Lilly, Attorney General for West Virginia, and Messrs. John H. Holt, Charles E. Hogg, and V. B. Archer, in support of the motion.

Messrs. William A. Anderson, Randolph Harrison, John B. Moon, and Mr. John Garland Pollard, Attorney General of Virginia, opposed.

Messrs. Sanford Robinson and Holmes Conrad also apposed.

Mr. Chief Justice White delivered the opinion of the court:

This case, which was begun in 1906, was elaborately argued in 1907 on a demurrer, which was overruled. 206 U. S. 290, 51 L. ed. 1068, 27 Sup. Ct. Rep. 732. It was again argued in 1908 on a motion to appoint a master. 209 U. S. 514, 52 L. ed. 914, 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 614. Before that officer there was an extended hearing, and a full report of all the matters involved was filed in March, 1910. It was then argued on a motion to take further testimony, and was ultimately heard in an argument which extended many days, every party in interest being represented, in the month of January, 1911.

Notwithstanding these facts, when in March, 1911, the court came to decide the controversy, although it fully reviewed and passed upon the fundamental issues, as its obvious duty required it to do, and fixed the principal sum due by the state of West Virginia to the state of Virginia, in view of the consideration due to the parties as states, and that the cause was, as then said, 'no ordinary commercial suit, but, . . . a quasi-international difference referred to this court in reliance upon the honor and constitutional obligations of the states concerned rather than upon ordinary remedies,' the controversy was not completely and irrevocably disposed of, but was left open for a time not specified, to the end that any clerical errors that might have crept into the calculations of the sums due could be corrected, and to give the states time to consider the subject of liability for interest in the light of what had been decided, and to agree as to the rate and period of the interest to be paid on the principal sum which was determined. 220 U. S. 1, 55 L. ed. 353, 31 Sup. Ct. Rep. 330.

On the convening of the court in the following October, 1911, a motion was made on behalf of the state of Virginia to proceed at once to a final decree. Listening to the suggestion of the state of West Virginia to the effect that it desired further time to consider the subject, and in view of the public considerations which had prevailed when the decree was entered, the motion of Virginia was overruled. 222 U. S. 17, 56 L. ed. 71, 32 Sup. Ct. Rep. 4.

Yet further, when, in November, 1913, another motion on the part of Virginia was made to set the case down to be finally disposed of at once upon the statement that no agreement between the parties was possible, again giving heed to the request of West Virginia, through its constituted officers, for a postponement for a stated time, and to the statement that they were engaged in an honest en- deavor to deal with the controversy, and, if possible, to come to an agreement as to the subjects left open, the motion of Virginia was again refused (231 U. S. 89, 58 L. ed. ——, 34 Sup. Ct. Rep. 29), and as it was possible to give to the state of West Virginia all the time which that state, in resisting the motion, asked, and yet secure against the possibility of the hearing being carried over to another term, the case was assigned for hearing on the 13th of April of this year....