252
Opinion of the Court
Pub. L. 80-47, § 3, 61 Stat. 80, 81. It is this language upon which the Red Cross relies, and which the Court of Appeals held to have conferred no federal jurisdiction.
III
A
As indicated earlier, we do not face a clean slate. Beginning with Chief Justice Marshall's opinion in 1809, we have had several occasions to consider whether the "sue and be sued" provision of a particular federal corporate charter conferred original federal jurisdiction over cases to which that corporation was a party, and our readings of those provisions not only represented our best efforts at divining congressional intent retrospectively, but have also placed Congress on prospective notice of the language necessary and sufficient to confer jurisdiction. See, e. g., United States v. Merriam, 263 U. S. 179, 186 (1923) (Congress presumed to intend judicially settled meaning of terms); Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U. S. 677, 696-698 (1979) (presuming congressional knowledge of interpretation of similarly worded earlier statute). Those cases therefore require visitation with care.
In Deveaux, we considered whether original federal jurisdiction over suits by or against the first Bank of the United States was conferred by its charter. The language in point authorized the Bank " 'to sue and be sued, plead and be im-pleaded, answer and be answered, defend and be defended, in courts of record, or any other place whatsoever,' " 5 Cranch, at 85. In the opinion written by Chief Justice Marshall, the Court held this language to confer no federal jurisdiction, reading it as a mere grant to the bank of the normal corporate capacity to sue, id., at 85-86. The Court contrasted the charter's "sue and be sued" provision with one authorizing the institution of certain suits against the bank's officers "in any court of record of the United States, or of
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