Can a court be a party in a civil lawsuit?
<p>Can a State or Federal court in the U.S. be a party in a civil lawsuit? I mean lawsuits completely unrelated to cases heard or adjudicated by the court, such as:</p>

<ul>
<li>A suit filed by a fired employee (e.g. a court stenographer),</li>
<li>A suit filed by a utility company for late payments for electricity,</li>
<li>A suit against a postal service that failed to deliver and lost court documents, etc.</li>
</ul>

<p>Is yes, then what courts have jurisdiction over such cases? Are there any special rules for such cases?</p>

<p>A court can neither sue nor be sued as it is not a legal person.</p>

<p>The state (read government) can be (subject to sovereign immunity) in its administrative arm (i.e. not the judicial or legislative branches).</p>

<p>For your particular examples:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>A suit filed by a fired employee (e.g. a court stenographer),</p>
</blockquote>

<p>the court has no employees. Court stenographers et al are employed by the administrative branch - the person who gets sued is the Secretary of State for the Justice Department (or whatever they are called).</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>A suit filed by a utility company for late payments for electricity,</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Utility companies are <strong>not</strong> the government even if 100% government owned (most are privately owned anyway) - companies are their own legal person.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>A suit against a postal service that failed to deliver and lost court documents, etc.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>I do not know what the legal status of the US Postal Service is - it is either part of a government department ora government owned corporation - see above.</p>

<p>The court is impartial because it is constitutionally required to be - it doesn't care who the plaintiff or defendant are.</p>

<p>As an aside, it isn't uncommon to see case captions, especially in older cases, that are captioned, for example, "<em>Jones v. District Court</em>".</p>

<p>These lawsuits involve something of a legal fiction and usually involve what used to be known as "mandamus actions". In this context, a mandamus action is a form of appeal to a higher court with appellate or supervisory jurisdiction over the court sued seeking review of a court order before the entire case is finally decided on the merits (also known as an interlocutory appeal).</p>

<p>For example, a mandamus action might be brought by a party to a lawsuit seeking to prevent the disclosure of documents covered by the attorney-client privilege when the court orders the documents to be disclosed. </p>

<p>The modern trend is to formally treat these interlocutory appeals as a form of appeal rather than as a form of lawsuit against the court. In Colorado, for example, these are now known as Rule 21 actions in civil lawsuits, after Colorado Appellate Rule 21 that authorizes these appeals.</p>

<p>These suits are always brought against the court in an official capacity for non-monetary relief and the nominal court defendant is never liable for damages or litigation costs or usually even for filing legal documents in the case other than the lower court record related to the dispute.</p>

united-states civil-law jurisdiction court