SCOTUS Resolves Two-Way State Court Split About New Jersey Transit

The New York Court of Appeals is affirmed, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is reversed.

Today the Supreme Court decided two related state court cases. The question presented was whether New Jersey Transit is an arm of the New Jersey government, and therefore protected from suit by sovereign immunity. The New York Court of Appeals (the highest court in New York) found that NJ Transit was not an arm of the government. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court found that the transit agency was an arm of the government.

Through Justice Sotomayor's unanimous decision, the Supreme Court resolved this two-way split by favoring New York's holding.

This pair of cases arises out of two accidents, one in New York City and one in Philadelphia, in which New JerseyTransit buses struck and injured people. Both victims sued New Jersey Transit, a corporation created by the New Jersey Legislature, in their respective home courts in New York and Pennsylvania. The highest courts in those States diverged as to whether New Jersey Transit is an arm of New Jersey. The Court granted certiorari to resolve whether New Jersey Transit is an arm of New Jersey and thus entitled to the State's sovereign immunity. It is not. Accordingly, the judgment of the New York Court of Appeals is affirmed and the judgment of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is reversed.

It is rare enough for the Supreme Court to actually resolve a circuit split among state courts. These splits can linger for years. It is rarer still for the Court to settle a split in a single decision. It is rarer still that, in the same week, the Supreme Court rules in favor of Staten Island, but against its cross-river-rival, New Jersey. Look around, look around. At how lucky we are to be alive right now.

Moreover, there is an emergency docket angle. Back in September 2025, the New Jersey Solicitor General sought an emergency stay to block a trial from proceeding against NJ Transit in New York state court. Two weeks later, the Court granted an emergency stay:

Application (25A287) for stay presented to Justice Sotomayor and by her referred to the Court is granted. The Court has already granted certiorari on the sovereign immunity issue decided below, and the pending damages trial before the Supreme Court of the State of New York would be barred if New Jersey Transit Corporation were entitled to sovereign immunity from suit. Respondents, on the other hand, identify no tangible irreparable harm they would face if the trial were delated until after this Court decides the pending case. The trial scheduled for September 15, 2025, in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, New York County, is therefore stayed pending the issuance of the mandate of this Court in NJ Transit Corp., et al. v. Colt, Jeffrey, et al., case No. 24-1113, and Galette, Cedric v. NJ Transit Corp., case No. 24-1021.

Here, the Court stayed the trial, even though the Court would go on to unanimously rule that NJ Transit lacked sovereign immunity. This is a case where emergency relief was granted based on the risk of irreparable harm, and not the likelihood of success on the merits.