UNITED STATES V.

LEE
Official Citation: 106 U.S. 196
Date: December 4, 1882

I. Ticker/s
 Arlington estate
 Due process
 Ejectment of government officers
 State immunity
 Parties to a suit

II. Doctrine/s
 The constitutional provision that “no person shall be deprived of life,
liberty, or property without due process of law, nor private property
taken for public use without just compensation” relate to those rights
whose protection is peculiarly within the province of the judicial
branch of the government.
 The United States cannot be lawfully sued without its consent in any
case, and that no action can be maintained against any individual
without such consent, where the judgment must depend on the right of
the United States to property held by such persons as officers or agents
for the government.
 It would be inconsistent with the very idea of supreme executive
power, and would endanger the performance of the public duties of the
sovereign, to subject (US) to repeated suits as a mater of right, at the
will of any citizen, and to submit to the judicial tribunals the control
and disposition of its public property, its instruments and means of
carrying on its government in war and in peace, and the money in its
treasury. (on the reason why a President cannot be sued and tried in
his own court)
 In deciding who are parties to the suit, the court will not look beyond
the record. Making a state officer a party does not make the state a
party, although her law may have prompted his action, and the state
may stand behind him as a real party in interest. A state can be made a
party only by shaping the bill expressly with that view, as where
individuals or corporations are intended to be put in that relation to the
case.

III. Facts
 The Federal Government purchased the estate of the widow of former
Confederate General Robert E. Lee, allegedly based on a failure to pay
an assessment under a tax to support the Civil War.
 However, her estate had attempted to make payment to the tax
commissioners but was told that only the owner in person could pay
overdue taxes. The government took possession of the property and
built the Arlington Cemetery and a fort on parts of it.
 The son of the Lees brought an ejectment action in state court against
Strong and Kaufmann, as individuals, to recover possession of
property. He argued that he had title to it under his grandfather’s will.

Page | 1
  The federal officers removed the case to federal court, and the attorney
general sought to have it dismissed on jurisdictional grounds, arguing
that the government held possession of the property through its
sovereign and constitutional powers. The federal government was not
actually a party in this case, though.

IV. Issues
 Whether or not US can be sued and tried in its own court.
 Whether or not right of plaintiff has been breached.

V. Decision / Ruling
 YES. The federal government was not a defendant or a necessary party
in the case, and the fact that the federal government is in possession of
property pursuant to a presidential order does not remove the
jurisdiction of courts. When an action does not need to involve the
United States as a defendant or a necessary party, the principle of
sovereign immunity should not be invoked to deny plaintiffs the
judicial enforcement of their rights.
 In British courts, sovereign immunity was not absolute and provided
many procedural loopholes that could expose the government to
liability. This case illustrates a similarly lenient understanding of the
doctrine, although it has tightened in more recent decisions.
 YES. The laws giving rise to its possession were deemed to be
unconstitutional, and the rightful owner had been deprived of the
property by the use of illegitimate force, which was the only basis for
the government's seizure and conversion of the property without just
compensation.

Page | 2