Sporhase v. Nebraska ex rel. Douglas
| Sporhase v. Nebraska ex rel. Douglas | |||||||
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| Argued March 30, 1982 Decided July 2, 1982 | |||||||
| Full case name | Sporhase v. Nebraska ex rel. Douglas, Attorney General | ||||||
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| Holding | |||||||
| The Nebraska statute forbidding commercial exportation of water from Nebraska was unconstitutional in that it violated the dormant commerce clause. | |||||||
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| Majority | Stevens, joined by Burger, Brennan, White, Marshall, Blackmun, Powell | ||||||
| Dissent | Rehnquist, joined by O'Connor | ||||||
Sporhase v. Nebraska ex rel. Douglas, 458 U.S. 941 (1982), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court decided that a Nebraska statute forbidding commercial exportation of water from Nebraska was unconstitutional in that it violated the dormant commerce clause.
The boundary between the states of Nebraska and Colorado passed through a farm owned by Sporhase. He drilled a well in Nebraska and used the water to irrigate his land on both sides of the boundary. Under the 11th Amendment, he could not sue the state of Nebraska in a federal district court; consequently his suit had to proceed in the state courts in Nebraska until he petitioned the United States Supreme Court to review it.
See also
Further reading
- Barnett, B. M. (1984). "Mixing Water and the Commerce Clause: the Problems of Practice, Precedent, and Policy in Sporhase v. Nebraska". Natural Resources Journal 24 (1): 161–194. ISSN 0028-0739.
- Chan, A. H. (1989). "To Market or Not to Market: Allocation of Interstate Waters". Natural Resources Journal 29 (2): 529–547. ISSN 0028-0739.
- Greenberg, A. D. (1983). "Sporhase v. Nebraska: The Muddying of Commerce Clause Waters". Ecology Law Quarterly 11 (2): 215–239. ISSN 0046-1121.
- McCormick, Zachary (2007). "Institutional Barriers to Water Marketing in the West". Journal of the American Water Resources Association 30 (6): 953–961. doi:10.1111/j.1752-1688.1994.tb03343.x.
External links
- Court opinion courtesy of FindLaw.com