What if you sue a foreign monarch in US Court?

Hello Dov,
I imagine it would be the name, followed by the title. Are you planning to sue someone?

Seattlefriend

I had thought that in court papers, there are, by dictate of the Constitution, no distinctions of rank or title, so if Cardinal Law of Boston were to be brought before a court, he would be addressed as Mr. Law. I could be wrong.

Hi again dov,
I hadn't heard of the rank/title ban in court, but it's easy to understand the thinking behind it. So maybe it's "name vs. name" and no titles, ranks, nor degrees mentioned.

Seattlefriend

Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8 of the Constitution reads "No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States".

Using a persons title of nobility isn't "granting" it to them. The title is granted by their own nation. Any use in our courts would be a recognition of the title, not a grant of...

Titles of nobility have been used in US Courts when referring to people all along. The following is from the USSC decision Ex Parte Grossman (1925) as an example:

"The king of England before our Revolution, in the exercise of his prerogative, had always exercised the power to pardon contempts of court, just as he did ordinary crimes and misdemeanors and as he has done to the present day. In the mind of a common-law lawyer of the eighteenth century the word 'pardon' included within its scope the ending by the king's grace of the punishment of such derelictions, whether it was imposed by the court without a jury or upon indictment, for both forms of trial for contempts were had. Thomas of Chartham v. Benet of Stamford (1313) 24 Selden Society, 185; Fulwood v. Fulwood (1585) Toothill, 46; Rex v. Buckenham (1665) 1 Keble, 751, 787, 852; Anonymous (1674) Cases in Chancery, 238; King and Codrington v. Rodman (1630) Cro. Car. 198; Bartram v. Dannett (1676) Finch, 253; Phipps v. Earl of Angelsea (1721) 1 Peere Williams, 696. [267 U.S. 87, 111] These cases also show that long before our Constitution, a distinction had been recognized at common law between the effect of the king's pardon to wipe out the effect of a sentence for contempt in so far as it had been imposed to punish the contemnor for violating the dignity of the court and the king, in the public interest and its inefficacy to halt or interfere with the remedial part of the court's order necessary to secure the rights of the injured suitor. IV Blackstone, 285, 397, 398; Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown (6th Ed. 1787) vol. 2, 553. The same distinction, nowadays referred to as the difference between civil and criminal contempts, is still maintained in English law. In the Matter of a Special Reference from Bahama Islands [267 U.S. 87, 1893] Appeal Cases, 138; Wellesley v. Duke of Beaufort, 2 Russell & Mylne, 639, 667 (where it is shown in the effect of a privilege from arrest of members of Parliament analogous in its operation to a pardon); In re Freston, 11 Q. B. D. 545, 552; Queen v. Barnardo, 23 Q. B. D. 305; O'Shea v. O'Shea and Parnell, 15 P. & D. 59, 62, 63, 65; Lord Chancellor Selborne in the House of Lords, 276 Hansard, 1714, commenting on Greene's Case, 6 Appeal Cases, 657."