78
Opinion of the Court
such cases to any other federal court.1 This follows from the plain meaning of "exclusive," see Webster's New International Dictionary 890 (2d ed. 1942) ("debar from possession"), and has been remarked upon by opinions in our original jurisdiction cases, e. g., California v. Arizona, 440 U. S. 59, 63 (1979) ("[A] district court could not hear [California's] claims against Arizona, because this Court has exclusive jurisdiction over such claims").
Because the District Court lacked jurisdiction over Louisiana's third-party complaint against Mississippi, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed insofar as it purports to grant any relief to Louisiana against Mississippi. The District Court is conceded to have had jurisdiction over the claims of the private plaintiffs against the private defendants, and in deciding questions of private title to riparian property, it may be necessary to decide where the boundary lies between the two States. Adjudicating such a question in a dispute between private parties does not violate § 1251(a), because that section speaks not in terms of claims or issues, but in terms of parties.2 The States, of course, are not bound by any decision as to the boundary between them which was rendered in a lawsuit between private litigants. See Durfee v. Duke, 375 U. S. 106, 115 (1963).
Because both the District Court and the Court of Appeals in this case intermixed the questions of title to real property and of the location of the state boundary, we are not in a position to say whether on this record the claims of title may
1 Neither party disputes Congress' authority to make our original jurisdiction exclusive in some cases and concurrent in others. This distinction has existed since the Judiciary Act of 1789, § 13, 1 Stat. 80-81, and has never been questioned by this Court, see Rhode Island v. Massachusetts, 12 Pet. 657, 722 (1838); Ames v. Kansas ex rel. Johnston, 111 U. S. 449, 469 (1884).
2 Mississippi and Louisiana do not question the District Court's jurisdiction over Louisiana's intervention in the title dispute. Louisiana's intervention is also unaffected by § 1251(a) because it does not seek relief against Mississippi.
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