Page:Alabama v. North Carolina, 560 U.S. (2010) slip opinion.pdf/30

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this Court alongside the plaintiff States, see Arizona v. California, 460 U. S., at 614. The summary judgment disallowing the underlying claims on their merits renders the sovereign immunity question with regard to any relief the Commission alone might have on those claims moot.

Counts III–V, which do not rely upon the Compact, stand on a different footing. As to them, while the Com­mission again seemingly makes the same claims and seeks the same relief as the States, it is conceivable that as a matter of law the Commission’s claims are not identical. The Commission can claim restitution as the party that paid the money to North Carolina; the other plaintiffs cannot claim it on that basis. Whether this means that the claims are not identical for Arizona v. California pur­poses, and that the Commission’s Counts III–V claims must be dismissed on sovereign immunity grounds, is a question that the Special Master declined to resolve until the merits issues were further clarified. We have ap­proved his deferral of those issues, and we likewise ap­prove his deferral of the related sovereign immunity issue.

We overrule the exceptions of Plaintiffs and North Carolina to the Special Master’s Reports, and we adopt the recommendations of the Special Master. We grant North Carolina’s motion to dismiss Count I. We grant North Carolina’s motion for summary judgment on Count II. We deny Plaintiffs’ motions for judgment on Counts I and II. And we deny without prejudice North Carolina’s motion to dismiss the Commission’s claims on the grounds of sover­eign immunity and its motion for summary judgment on Counts III–V.