United States v. Lee (1882)

United States v. Lee
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 18–19, 1882 Decided December 4, 1882
Full case name	United States v. Lee. Kaufman and another v. Same.
Citations	106 U.S. 196 (more) 1 S. Ct. 240; 27 L. Ed. 171; 16 Otto 196
Case history
Prior	Error to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Holding
Sovereign immunity does not extend to officers of the government.
Court membership
Chief Justice Morrison Waite Associate Justices Samuel F. Miller · Stephen J. Field Joseph P. Bradley · John M. Harlan William B. Woods · Stanley Matthews Horace Gray · Samuel Blatchford
Case opinions
Majority	Miller, joined by Field, Harlan, Matthews, Blatchford
Dissent	Gray, joined by Waite, Bradley, Woods
Laws applied
Act for the Collection of Taxes in the Insurrectionary Districts (12 Stat. at L. 422); Fifth Amendment

United States v. Lee, 106 U.S. 196 (1882),^[1][2] is a 5-to-4 ruling by the United States Supreme Court which held that the Constitution's prohibition on lawsuits against the federal government did not extend to officers of the government themselves.^[3] The case involved the heir of Mary Anna Custis Lee, wife of Confederate States of America General Robert E. Lee, who sued to regain control of Arlington House and its grounds. Arlington had been seized by the United States government in 1861 and eventually converted into Arlington National Cemetery. The estate had been sold to pay outstanding taxes, but the lawsuit contested the tax sale as improper. A jury found in favor of the Lees.^[4] The Supreme Court, too, concluded that the tax sale was illegal.^[5][6][7][8] In stripping the federal officers of their sovereign immunity, the Supreme Court agreed that suit against them was proper.^[6][9]

The jury verdict returned Arlington to the Lee family, but only temporarily. The family never returned to Arlington, but rather sold the estate to the United States government in 1883 for $150,000 ($4,905,000 in 2023 dollars).^[10]