8
Opinion of the Court
contributions from the farmers and the State had committed to dividing any recovery among the farmers "in proportion to the amount of [their] loss." Id., at 375.
Those cases make it clear that a "State is not permitted to enter a controversy as a nominal party in order to forward the claims of individual citizens." Maryland v. Louisiana, 451 U. S., at 737; see also New Hampshire v. Louisiana, 108 U. S., at 89 (Eleventh Amendment applies and acts to bar jurisdiction where "the State and the attorney-general are only nominal actors in the proceeding"). The "governing principle" is that in order to invoke our original jurisdiction, "the State must show a direct interest of its own and not merely seek recovery for the benefit of individuals who are the real parties in interest." Oklahoma ex rel. Johnson v. Cook, 304 U. S. 387, 396 (1938).
Kansas has unquestionably made such a showing. Indeed, the present proceeding is but one of several in which Kansas' own interest in preventing upstream diversions from the Arkansas River has justified an exercise of our original jurisdiction. In Cook we even offered as an example of proper original jurisdiction one of the prior original suits between Kansas and Colorado, see id., at 393-394 (citing Kansas v. Colorado, 206 U. S. 46 (1907)), and in Texas v. New Mexico we held that enforcement of an interstate water compact by means of a recovery of money damages can be within a State's proper pursuit of the "general public interest" in an original action, 482 U. S., at 132, n. 7.
Moreover, the record in this case plainly discloses that the State of Kansas has been in full control of this litigation since its inception. Its right to control the disposition of any recovery of damages is entirely unencumbered. The injury to individual farmers is but one component of the formula adopted by the Special Master to quantify the damages caused by Colorado's violation of its contractual obligations. In short, there is simply nothing in the record to suggest that the State of Kansas is merely a "nominal party" to this
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