Florida v. Georgia

Summary

A unanimous Court, in an opinion by Justice Barrett, overruled Florida's exceptions to the Special Master's second report and dismissed Florida's original action seeking an equitable apportionment of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint Basin waters. Conducting an independent review of the record, the Court held Florida failed to prove by clear and convincing evidence that Georgia's alleged overconsumption caused the 2012 collapse of Florida's oyster fisheries, pointing to Florida's own record harvesting and lax reshelling, expert modeling showing minimal flow effects, and confounding droughts and Corps reservoir operations. The Court likewise found no clear-and-convincing proof of serious harm to river wildlife and plant life, and it declined to specify the causation standard for equitable-apportionment cases because Florida failed under any of the parties' proposed standards.