The U.S. Supreme Court on Sept. 12 temporarily halted a New York state trial related to an upcoming high court case over New Jersey Transit’s potential liability for injuries caused outside its home state.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who oversees emergency appeals related to New York state, issued an order pausing the case, known as New Jersey Transit Corp. v. Colt, until further notice. The transit agency had asked the justice the day before to stay the case.

Sotomayor did not explain why she granted the administrative stay, which gives the justices additional time to fully consider the state’s application to block the trial, which was scheduled to begin on Sept. 15.

The new ruling came as the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to hear oral argument in the case after granting the transit agency’s petition for certiorari, or review, on July 3. The court ordered that the appeal be heard together with a related case from Pennsylvania, Galette v. New Jersey Transit Corp. The hearing has not yet been scheduled but is expected to take place during the court’s new term that begins in October.

New Jersey Transit is being sued in state courts in New York and Pennsylvania after its buses allegedly struck people while operating outside the Garden State.

Although the transit agency operates buses, trains, and light rail primarily in its home state, its service extends to the Philadelphia and New York metropolitan areas.

The legal issue is whether New Jersey’s public transit system may be sued for accidents that take place outside of New Jersey.

The U.S. Supreme Court will review state court decisions on whether the New Jersey entity counts as an arm of that state, and thereby enjoys sovereign immunity from lawsuits in other states’ courts.

Sovereign immunity is a legal doctrine that prevents governments from being sued unless they consent to being sued. The sovereign immunity of U.S. states is enshrined in the 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In the case at hand, Jeffrey Colt sued New Jersey Transit in 2017 in New York state court, claiming that a transit agency bus struck him in New York City, according to the agency’s U.S. Supreme Court petition.

The transit agency asked the New York state court to dismiss the lawsuit. The court did not rule on the immunity issue but dismissed the lawsuit on other grounds.

An intermediate appeals court in New York affirmed, holding that the transit agency “is an arm of the State of New Jersey … entitled to invoke the doctrine of sovereign immunity,” but found that fairness required that its immunity be overridden, the petition said.

The New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, in November 2024 allowed the case to proceed.

That court found that maintaining the “action against defendant New Jersey Transit Corporation in [New York] courts would not offend New Jersey’s sovereign dignity” and accordingly held that the defendants were “not entitled to invoke a sovereign immunity defense.”

Sovereign dignity refers to a state’s right to be treated with respect and not to have parties outside its borders interfere with its internal affairs.

Colt’s case then arrived at the New York County division of the New York Supreme Court, a trial-level court.

New Jersey Transit asked the court to put the case on hold until after the U.S. Supreme Court hears and decides New Jersey Transit Corp. v. Colt, and its companion case, Galette v. New Jersey Transit Corp.

On Sept. 2, that court rejected New Jersey Transit’s motion to delay the case.

“It is clear that New York has an interest in protecting its residents from negligence of others, including buses owned and operated by New Jersey Transit,” the trial court held.

To stay the trial pending a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court “would be an extreme miscarriage of justice to plaintiffs.”

“After litigating the action for approximately eight years, plaintiffs are entitled to a verdict,” the trial court stated.

On Sept. 11, New Jersey Transit asked the U.S. Supreme Court to prevent the New York courts from moving forward with the trial.

Describing the situation as “extraordinary and urgent,” the transit agency said in its application to the U.S. Supreme Court that the state trial court was wrong to insist “on subjecting a state defendant to trial” even after the Supreme Court granted certiorari to decide whether the transit agency was immune “from that very suit in the first place.”

The Sept. 15 trial should be stayed to prevent the transit agency from “suffering irreparable harm and to protect” the Supreme Court’s ability “to grant full relief in a case it has already granted,” the application stated.

Colt filed a brief on Sept. 12 opposing the transit agency’s stay request.

In its brief, Colt argued that New Jersey Transit waited too long to seek dismissal of the case based on sovereign immunity.

Now on the eve of the trial, “after subpoenas have been issued, expert witnesses paid to block off time, and significant judicial resources expended in setting a trial date,” the transit agency is asking to halt the proceedings, the brief stated.

The transit agency has not explained “what practical difference a stay would make under the unusual circumstances of this case.”

The U.S. Supreme Court may revisit the administrative stay that Sotomayor granted at any time.

This article by Matthew Vadum appeared Sept. 13, 2025, in The Epoch Times. It was updated Sept. 14, 2025.