Cite as: 505 U. S. 247 (1992)
Scalia, J., dissenting
in any court, state or federal," the Court believes that our cases have established the latter (but not the former) as a shorthand for "sue and be sued in any court, state or federal, and the federal district courts shall have jurisdiction over any such action." Congress is assumed to have used this cleverly crafted code in enacting the charter provision at issue here. Ante, at 251-252. In my view, our cases do not establish the cryptology the Court attributes to them. Rather, the four prior cases in which we have considered the jurisdictional implications of "sue and be sued" clauses are best understood as simply applications of conventional rules of statutory construction.
In Bank of the United States v. Deveaux, 5 Cranch 61 (1809), we held that a provision of the Act establishing the first Bank of the United States which stated that the Bank was "made able and capable in law . . . to sue and be sued . . . in courts of record, or any other place whatsoever," 1 Stat. 192, did not confer jurisdiction on the federal courts to adjudicate suits brought by the Bank. Construing the statutory terms in accordance with their ordinary meaning, we concluded (as I conclude with respect to the Red Cross Charter) that the provision merely gave "a capacity to the corporation to appear, as a corporation, in any court which would, by law, have cognisance of the cause, if brought by individuals." 5 Cranch, at 85-86 (emphasis added). We expressly noted (as I have in this case) that the Act's undifferentiated mention of all courts compelled the conclusion that the provision was not jurisdictional: "If jurisdiction is given by this clause to the federal courts, it is equally given to all courts having original jurisdiction, and for all sums however small they may be." Id., at 86 (emphasis added). That statement is immediately followed by contrasting this provision with another section of the Act which provided that certain actions against the directors of the Bank "may . . . be brought . . . in any court of record of the United States, or of either of them." 1 Stat. 194. That provision, we said,
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