National banks in the U.S. won a big court victory Tuesday when the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that banks should be considered “citizens” of their home state. The ruling will make it easier for banks to move lawsuits to federal courts, which are thought to be more favorable to them than state courts. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg‘s opinion, reversing the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decision to send a tax shelter lawsuit against North Carolina-based Wachovia Corp. to court in South Carolina, home of plaintiff Daniel Schmidt, said that banks should not have less access to federal courts than other corporations.
