Interagency Litigation and Article III

Agencies of the United States often find themselves onopposite sides of the "v. " in disputes ranging from allegedunfair labor practices in federal agencies, to competingstatutory interpretations, to run-of-the mill squabbles overmoney. Yet Article III's case-or-controversy requirement includes--at a minimum-adverse parties and standing.Courts have disagreed with one another over the extent towhich litigation between the sovereign and itself meetsArticle III standards. Despite the volume of scholarshipon Article III standing, relatively little attention has beenpaid to Article III's requirement of adverse parties ingeneral, or the justiciability of intrabranch litigation inparticular.Looking at both historical practice and modern ArticleIII case law and scholarship,this Article finds meaningfuljurisdictional limits on interagency litigation. When theonly litigants in a case assert the sovereign prerogatives ofthe United States, there is no case or controversy withinthe meaning of Article III.

This conclusion is supported by200 years of case law and follows from what it meanswhen the "United States" invokes its courts.