The U.S. Supreme Court on March 4 ruled unanimously that New Jersey’s public transit system may be sued for accidents that take place outside of its home state.

The justices found that New Jersey Transit is not an arm of the state, and this means that it can be sued in other states’ courts.

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

The decision in the case is expected to have ramifications for state-created public agencies that have operations beyond the borders of their home states.

The 9–0 opinion in New Jersey Transit Corp. v. Colt and Galette v. New Jersey Transit Corp. was written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

“States are generally entitled to immunity from being sued in another State’s courts without their consent,” Sotomayor said. “That sovereign immunity is personal to the State and thus extends only to arms of the State itself, not to legally independent entities that the State creates.”

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. The related doctrine known as interstate sovereign immunity holds that a state can’t be sued in another state’s courts without its consent.

Top courts in Pennsylvania and New York state disagreed on whether the transit agency was entitled to interstate sovereign immunity. A Pennsylvania court ruled that the agency was immune in that state’s courts because it was an arm of the state of New Jersey, but a New York state court found the opposite, ruling the agency could be sued in New York’s courts.

Jeffrey Colt filed suit against New Jersey Transit in 2017 in a New York state court, claiming that a transit agency bus struck him. Cedric Galette filed suit against New Jersey Transit in a state court in Pennsylvania over a 2018 accident.

In oral arguments on Jan. 14, Michael Kimberly, attorney for Colt and Galette, said that when New Jersey constituted the transit agency as “a separate legal entity,” it accepted that the agency “does not share in the state’s sovereign immunity.”

“That has been the consistent holding of this court for the last 200 years,” Kimberly said.

At the hearing, Sotomayor told New Jersey Transit attorney Michael Zuckerman that the state’s incorporation of New Jersey Transit as a separate legal entity was “centrally important.”

The fact that the Supreme Court has ruled that “the corporate form itself is evidence that an entity is not the state” is a “factor [that] goes against you.”

In the new opinion, Sotomayor said that New Jersey “structured [New Jersey Transit] as a legally separate entity” and that “the state is not formally liable for any of [New Jersey Transit’s] debts or liabilities.”

She said the New Jersey governor has appointment and removal powers over the board, a state cabinet member chairs the board, the governor can veto board actions, and the state Legislature is allowed to veto some eminent-domain actions. The governor has for-cause removal power for eight of the 13 board members.

However, the fact that the state exerts “substantial” control over the agency “does not change the overall conclusion here,” Sotomayor said.

“This level of control does not meaningfully affect [New Jersey Transit’s] status, given the fact that it is a legally separate corporation and is responsible for its own judgments,” she said.

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the New York Court of Appeals and reversed the judgment of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, sending that case back to that court “for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.”

Asked for comment, Kimberly said that his side was “very gratified” by the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision.

“If New Jersey wants the benefits of a separate legal entity for [New Jersey Transit], it must also take the cost, namely that [New Jersey Transit] is separate from the state and isn’t entitled to sovereign immunity,” he told The Epoch Times.

On a practical level, that means that New Jersey Transit “will be accountable for the injuries it causes in New York and Pennsylvania, as obviously it should be,” according to Kimberly.

A spokesman for the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General told The Epoch Times that the office had no comment on the new ruling.

This article by Matthew Vadum appeared March 4, 2026, in The Epoch Times.