Charles Evans Hughes

“ The defendants have successfully resisted the charge and the question is whether they should be denied the usual incidents of their success. We apply the principle that there is no presumption that the agent is clothed with sovereign immunity. We look as in the Keifer and Burr cases to see whether Congress has endowed petitioner with that immunity and we find no indications whatever of such an intent. We apply the farther principle that the words 'sue and be sued' normally include the natural and appropriate incidents of legal proceedings. ”

“ Congress has expressly provided that the Reconstruction Finance Corporation shall have power 'to sue and be sued, to complain and to defend, in any court of competent jurisdiction, State or Federal'. There is nothing in the statutes governing its transactions which suggests any intention of Congress that in suing and being sued the Corporation should not be subject to the ordinary incident of unsuccessful litigation in being liable for the costs which might properly be awarded against a private party in a similar case. ”

“ Starting from the premise indicated in the Keifer case that waivers by Congress of governmental immunity from suit should be liberally construed in the case of federal instrumentalities-that being in line with the current disfavor of the doctrine of governmental immunity-we concluded that in the absence of a contrary showing 'it must be presumed that when Congress launched a governmental agency into the commercial world and endowed it with authority to 'sue or be sued', that agency is not less amenable to judicial process than a private enterprise under like circumstances would be'. ”