Cite as: 538 U. S. 488 (2003)
Syllabus
is competent to legislate. E. g., Sun Oil Co. v. Wortman, 486 U. S. 717, 722. Nevada is undoubtedly competent to legislate with respect to the subject matter of the alleged intentional torts here, which, it is claimed, have injured one of its citizens within its borders. CFTB argues unpersuasively that this Court should adopt a "new rule" mandating that a state court extend full faith and credit to a sister State's statutorily recaptured sovereign immunity from suit when a refusal to do so would interfere with the State's capacity to fulfill its own sovereign responsibilities. The Court has, in the past, appraised and balanced state interests when invoking the Full Faith and Credit Clause to resolve conflicts between overlapping laws of coordinate States. See, e. g., Bradford Elec. Light Co. v. Clapper, 286 U. S. 145. However, this balancing-of-interests approach quickly proved unsatisfactory and the Court abandoned it, Allstate Ins. Co. v. Hague, 449 U. S. 302, 308, n. 10, 322, n. 6, 339, n. 6, recognizing, instead, that it is frequently the case under the Clause that a court can lawfully apply either the law of one State or the contrary law of another, Sun Oil Co. v. Wortman, supra, at 727. The Court has already ruled that the Full Faith and Credit Clause does not require a forum State to apply a sister State's sovereign immunity statutes where such application would violate the forum State's own legitimate public policy. Nevada v. Hall, 440 U. S. 410, 424. There is no constitutionally significant distinction between the degree to which the allegedly tortious acts here and in Hall are related to a core sovereign function. States' sovereignty interests are not foreign to the full faith and credit command, but the Court is not presented here with a case in which a State has exhibited a "policy of hostility to the public Acts" of a sister State. Carroll v. Lanza, 349 U. S. 408, 413. The Nevada Supreme Court sensitively applied comity principles with a healthy regard for California's sovereign status, relying on the contours of Nevada's own sovereign immunity from suit as a benchmark for its analysis. Pp. 494-499.
Affirmed.
O'Connor, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
Felix E. Leatherwood, Deputy Attorney General of California, argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, Manuel M. Medeiros, State Solicitor, David S. Chaney, Senior Assistant Attorney General, and William Dean Freeman, Lead Supervising Deputy Attorney General.
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