- More on this to come, but Epic Systems, the workplace arbitration decision, is an epic win for contractual freedom and a big loss for the class action bar [earlier here and here]
- SCOTUS will revisit 1985 Williamson decision, which “makes it very difficult to bring takings cases in federal court.” [Ilya Somin on cert grant in Knick v. Township of Scott, earlier]
- Gorsuch and Thomas: similar originalist methods, which do not always arrive at similar results [Ilya Shapiro]
- “Can Agencies Adjudicate Patentability?” Two views of the recent case Oil States Energy Services v. Greene’s Energy Group [Cato “Regulation,” Jonathan Barnett and Jonathan Stroud via Peter Van Doren]
- “Victory for Defendant Autonomy and the Criminal Jury Trial in McCoy v. Louisiana” [Jay Schweikert]
- Quantitative analysis of amicus brief success at Supreme Court tells many stories, among them the sterling record of the Cato Institute’s amicus program [Adam Feldman, Empirical SCOTUS]
Posts Tagged ‘Clarence Thomas’
November 29 roundup
- Will it ever end? “Monkey Selfie Photographer Says He’s Now Going To Sue Wikipedia” [Mike Masnick, TechDirt, earlier]
- Justice Thomas argues Indian Reorganization Act is unconstitutional [Upstate Citizens for Equality v. U.S., land-into-trust, dissenting from denial of certiorari]
- “How much does it cost to reimburse a probation officer for $60 pants? About $4,300, so far” [John Beauge, PennLive]
- On Gill v. Whitford, partisan gerrymandering, and the uses of math in law [Erica Goldberg]
- Brazil makes progress on fighting corruption, advancing rule of law [Juan Carlos Hidalgo on new Cato policy analysis by Geanluca Lorenzon]
- “Activision are fighting a [trademark] for ‘Call of DooDee’, a dog-poop-removal service” [PC Games]
Clarence Thomas questions civil asset forfeiture
The Supreme Court declined certiorari for other reasons in the case of Lisa Olivia Leonard v. Texas, but Justice Clarence Thomas in a separate concurrence took the opportunity to challenge whether the Court’s historic toleration of forfeiture as consistent with the Constitution is at this point consistent either with modern standards of due process or with modern police practices, which resort to forfeiture on a far broader scale than before. [Adam Bates, Cato; daily orders include Thomas opinion]
November 2 roundup
- Clarence Thomas completes a quarter century of distinguished service on the Supreme Court, not that certain journalists will ever see past their loathing [Adam White, Weekly Standard; Ann Althouse]
- Hollywood actor’s lawsuit-related vengefulness against anonymous Twitter troll endures past death [Mike Masnick]
- United Nations panel: U.S. owes racial reparations [PBS]
- “Yesterday’s Antitrust Laws Can’t Solve Today’s Problems” [Tyler Cowen]
- “As a gay man, I’m horrified that Christian bakers are being forced to surrender their beliefs” [Neil Midgley, Telegraph on ruling by Belfast, Northern Ireland court of appeal]
- Another review of Naomi Schaefer Riley’s new book, The New Trail of Tears: How Washington Is Destroying American Indians [W. B. Allen, earlier] ABA Journal covers ongoing controversy over Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) [earlier]
April 20 roundup
- HBO back with “Confirmation” docudrama on the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill episode and Stuart Taylor, Jr. not greatly impressed [Mollie Hemingway, The Federalist]
- Another rogue Eastern District of Texas patent outcome falls, this time it’s Google for $85 million [Joe Mullin, ArsTechnica] “New Bill Designed To Stop Egregious Venue Shopping By Patent Trolls” [Nathan Leamer and Zach Graves, TechDirt]
- “Life in California — A Tax on a Tax” [Coyote]
- Washington Post looks at jury nullification in multi-part series;
- Michael Greve recommends this article on unorthodox methods of lawmaking and administrative law, and his recommendation is good enough for me [Abbe Gluck, Anne Joseph O’Connell, and Rosa Po, SSRN]
- Are public bureaucracies really a fount of innovation? Not really, despite vogue for new Marianna Mazzucato book The Entrepreneurial State [Alberto Mingardi, EconLog]
Supreme Court and constitutional law roundup
- New York Times suggests Justice Clarence Thomas’s opinions borrow too much language from briefs and lower courts. Orin Kerr on why that’s unfair;
- Prosecutors have too much leeway to request freeze on defendant’s assets pending trial [Ilya Shapiro, Cato]
- Certiorari petition arising from Newman/Chiasson prosecution: “Obama Administration Gambles On Supreme Court Review Of Insider-Trading Case” [Daniel Fisher]
- “Another Chance To Clean Up ‘Trial by Formula’ Class Actions” [Andrew Grossman/Cato, SCOTUSBlog on Tyson Foods v. Bouaphakeo]
- “Bench Memos” to the barricades: National Review builds case for “resistance” to Supreme Court decisions” [my two cents at Cato on rhetoric likening Obergefell to Dred Scott]
- Media firms including Time, Meredith, Advance, NPR jump into Spokeo case before high court, warn of Fair Credit Reporting Act litigation “quagmire” [Media Post]
- After a tainted-food episode, managers convicted without a showing of mens rea? Egg case deserves a closer look [Ilya Shapiro, Cato]
“Stop calling it fair housing…”
…There’s nothing fair about it. I’ve got a post at Cato about yesterday’s important Supreme Court victory for the Left in which Justice Anthony Kennedy joined the four liberals to hold that current federal law allows housing suits based on “disparate impact” theories. I explain why pundits are being silly when they claim that the Court “saved” the Fair Housing Act or that a contrary ruling would have “gutted” it, and why Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas were right in their dissents to spotlight the shaky basis of the theory in the statutory text, going back to the original disparate-impact case, Griggs v. Duke Power.
True, Kennedy did throw a sop or two about how courts applying disparate impact need to avoid pressuring actors toward the potentially unconstitutional result of quotas. Although some consider these bits of wording significant, I suspect that will mean about as much as similar sops that the Court has thrown over the years about avoiding quotas in employment and education, i.e., not much. Others, such as Cory Andrews of WLF, point to Kennedy language suggesting (on what statutory basis is not entirely clear) that disparate impact scrutiny might be limited to “artificial, arbitrary, and unnecessary” practices, a narrowness of approach not seen in other disparate-impact contexts. How administrable such a standard might prove, or how much litigation will be needed before it is clarified, is anyone’s guess.
Some further background on Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project: SCOTUSBlog, Cato’s brief in the case and earlier coverage by Ilya Shapiro and company here and here, and my podcast.
Supreme Court and constitutional law roundup
- New Yorker legal correspondent Jeffrey Toobin as unreliable narrator, part 483 [Damon Root, Pejman Yousefzadeh re: attack on Justice Clarence Thomas]
- Background of Halliburton case: Lerach used Milwaukee Archdiocese to pursue Dick Cheney grudge [Paul Barrett, Business Week] More/related: Alison Frankel, Stephen Bainbridge (rolling out professorial “big guns”), Chamber Institute for Legal Reform (paper, “What’s Wrong With Securities Class Action Lawsuits?”)] & update: new Chamber paper on extent of consumer losses;
- Roger Pilon on NLRB v. Canning recess-appointments case [Cato]
- States’ efforts to tax citizens of other states stretch Commerce Clause to breaking point [Steve Malanga]
- Richard Epstein on his new book The Classical Liberal Constitution [Hoover, more; yet more on why Epstein considers himself a classical liberal rather than hard-core libertarian]
- Corporate law and the Hobby Lobby case [Bainbridge]
- Some state supreme courts including California’s interpret “impairment of contracts” language as constitutional bar to curbing even future accruals in public employee pension reform. A sound approach? [Sasha Volokh first, second, third, fourth, fifth posts, related Fed Soc white paper]
Law schools roundup
- Universities’ prestige game: will “zombie law schools” drag down the rest? [Gerard Magliocca]
- Law as undergraduate degree works in advanced countries like Germany and Britain, could work here too [Bainbridge]
- It’s a capitalist plot! Steve Diamond of Santa Clara assails Brian Tamanaha’s critique of law schools as too redolent of Hayek, Cato [SSRN, background, more]
- “That’s pretty good reason to speak up: Thomas Breaks 5-year Silence During #SCOTUS Arguments to Mock Yale” [@DavidMastio]
- Dean who took huge pay packet for dismal results is also immediate past president of ABA law school panel [Campos]
- Does the California experience undercut arguments for relaxing accreditation? [Matt Bodie]
- “What Do Law Professors Think About the Critiques of the Law Schools?” [Orin Kerr]
November 14 roundup
- Seeking to address widespread pharmaceutical shortages, Obama executive order downplays government role in causing them [Fair Warning, WSJ editorial, earlier here, here, here, here, etc.]
- “The school has a strict no-hugging policy….” [WKMG Orlando]
- Retired Justice John Paul Stevens isn’t buying the “Thomas should recuse” meme [USA Today via Legal Ethics Forum]
- Not COPPA-cetic: among other unintended consequences, Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act has encouraged parents to help kids to falsify ages online [Danah Boyd via Jim Harper, Suderman, Reason, Stewart Baker, earlier]
- Lawmaking from the bench: Maryland high court strikes down law limiting landlords’ lead paint liability [Ronald Miller] “Maryland court sides with plaintiffs in slip-and-fall cases” [Emily Babay, Examiner]
- Trial lawyers help bail out Bexar County Democratic party [San Antonio Express-News]
- Supreme Court agrees to hear case arguing that aggressive enforcement of local housing code violates federal Fair Housing Act [Magner v. Gallagher, SCOTUSBlog, Illinois Municipal League, Daniel Fisher, Inverse Condemnation]