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Acts of Congress can fundamentally rework the federal courts. It would ring more than a little hollow for the Supremes to say “they can’t require cameras in here” when they could destroy the body at will.
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Jun 25, 2021 02:39
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Platystemon posted:Acts of Congress can fundamentally rework the federal courts. The SCOTUS can and will ignore that as it suits them. It's literally what they did with Shelby County since Congress is supposed to be the final say on voting rights but the SCOTUS didn't care and Obama like most Dems was a spineless rear end in a top hat who just went along with the ruling instead of challenging its legitimacy.
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Jun 25, 2021 03:22
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Platystemon posted:Acts of Congress can fundamentally rework the federal courts. This assumes congress can, at this point in time, destroy the body at will when it absolutely cannot. Congress: "Cameras in the courtrooms!" SCOTUS: "9-0 decision that's unconstitutional. What are you going to do, dissolve us?" Dems: "Yeah, we absolutely are!" GOP: "Actually no, we'd rather not lose what has shaped up to be a decades long ideological grip on the highest court in the land over some dumb camera debate. Filibustered." Manchin and Sinema: "While it is unfortunate that SCOTUS has abused their power and our GOP colleagues refuse to act, the filibuster is a sacred tradition to check the tyranny of the majority and we mustn't get rid of it over something so small, furthermore-"
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Jun 25, 2021 03:34
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The Court isn’t going to declare cameras in the court to be unconstitutional; they won’t even challenge it. They might not want to do it but they recognize what fights are worth having.
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Jun 25, 2021 04:00
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Evil Fluffy posted:The SCOTUS can and will ignore that as it suits them. It's literally what they did with Shelby County since Congress is supposed to be the final say on voting rights but the SCOTUS didn't care and Obama like most Dems was a spineless rear end in a top hat who just went along with the ruling instead of challenging its legitimacy. These situations are not at all comparable.
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Jun 25, 2021 04:02
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Kalman posted:The Court isn’t going to declare cameras in the court to be unconstitutional; they won’t even challenge it. They might not want to do it but they recognize what fights are worth having. Hah, that seems like a wildly optimistic perspective on how sagely rational our ruling priests are.
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Jun 25, 2021 04:14
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Sydin posted:This assumes congress can, at this point in time, destroy the body at will when it absolutely cannot. Actually, it's even simpler than that. Congress can't destroy SCOTUS because its existence (like that of Congress) is mandated by the Constitution.
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Jun 25, 2021 05:27
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Strip the court of all appellate jurisdiction. Now they get “all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party”. Have fun litigating water wars and the misdeed of ambassadors.
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Jun 25, 2021 06:16
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Fuschia tude posted:Actually, it's even simpler than that. Congress can't destroy SCOTUS because its existence (like that of Congress) is mandated by the Constitution. Judicial power is vested in a supreme court, but Congress has the sole power to ordain and establish which court that is. If they wanted to pick a different committee to rule America by fiat they could do it with 50 votes. Congress can also freely define the jurisdiction of the court to widen or narrow its scope. And they can change its membership, or redefine the meaning of good behavior or the duration of the continuance. Congress has complete oversight over the courts. Kaal fucked around with this message at 08:28 on Jun 25, 2021 |
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Jun 25, 2021 08:20
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If you had the power to prohibit people from filming you constantly while you work, I suspect most of you would do it. I fully support SCOTUS in depriving the internet the ability to turn them into reaction gifs. Also, if you want to fantasize about nullifying the current SCOTUS, you may as just fantasize the military revolting to install the prophesied child of Bernie and AOC as Eternal Emperor, because it's equally likely. Evil Fluffy posted:Sounds like businesses could be required to allow off the contract union activities as part of the requirement to get a business license in the state then. Platystemon posted:It’s a taking to not allow me to store sixty-seven tons of fertilizer in a barn with wet hay in a residential area. VitalSigns posted:Organizing for labor rights at your work is now stealing from your lord.
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Jun 25, 2021 09:09
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Dead Reckoning posted:If you had the power to prohibit people from filming you constantly while you work, I suspect most of you would do it. I fully support SCOTUS in depriving the internet the ability to turn them into reaction gifs. The decisions I make on my job and the reasons I make them do not impact ~330M people. SCOTUS Judges' decisions do. gently caress right off off with this bullshit false equivalency. 
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Jun 25, 2021 09:41
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Dead Reckoning posted:If you had the power to prohibit people from filming you constantly while you work, I suspect most of you would do it. I fully support SCOTUS in depriving the internet the ability to turn them into reaction gifs. They are nine of the most powerful people on earth with for-life appointments in the field of public service where public scrutiny is most crucial, I think the internet has the right to parade around the fact that Clarence Thomas sleeps through most of his cases before stripping people's civil rights away as much as they want.
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Jun 25, 2021 09:42
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Dead Reckoning posted:It's weird that the decision takes time to specifically discuss the difference between telling you things you can't do with your property, and allowing someone else to use your property, but you don't seem to recognize it. Do you think speed limits are no different from the government making you let someone borrow your car for a few hours a day for 1/3 the year? Hmm you have a point. If the borrowing of my car didn’t get in the way of my use and didn’t materially damage the car, I would gladly accept that in exchange for immunity from traffic laws. Dead Reckoning posted:Also, if you want to fantasize about nullifying the current SCOTUS, you may as just fantasize the military revolting to install the prophesied child of Bernie and AOC as Eternal Emperor, because it's equally likely. My fantasies are much better than you imagine them to be. Platystemon fucked around with this message at 10:10 on Jun 25, 2021 |
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Jun 25, 2021 10:07
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i dont have to fantasize, climate change is gonna destroy the supreme court for me
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Jun 25, 2021 11:24
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Dead Reckoning posted:It's weird that the decision takes time to specifically discuss the difference between telling you things you can't do with your property, and allowing someone else to use your property, but you don't seem to recognize it. Do you think speed limits are no different from the government making you let someone borrow your car for a few hours a day for 1/3 the year?
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Jun 25, 2021 11:55
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No one’s property is getting taken or used. Cali farm owners just had to let their employees talk to each other off the clock about organizing for a very limited timeframe.
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Jun 25, 2021 12:24
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Dead Reckoning posted:If you had the power to prohibit people from filming you constantly while you work, I suspect most of you would do it. I fully support SCOTUS in depriving the internet the ability to turn them into reaction gifs. This is an impressively dumb argument, well done. Except when highly sensitive personal information is being covered, court proceedings should be publicly accessible at all levels just as monitoring and recording cops in public is legal.
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Jun 25, 2021 13:11
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Evil Fluffy posted:This is an impressively dumb argument, well done. I mean, there is audio recording of Supreme Court arguments, just not video.
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Jun 25, 2021 13:15
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Epicurius posted:I mean, there is audio recording of Supreme Court arguments, just not video. All the more reason why any attempts to block video in there is stupid.
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Jun 25, 2021 13:17
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gently caress cameras in oral arguments. Judges should wear bodycams 24/7 so we can see who's bribing them
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Jun 25, 2021 13:53
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VitalSigns posted:gently caress cameras in oral arguments. At least we already know Thomas has his bribes funneled directly through his wife.
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Jun 25, 2021 14:06
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Jokes on you, Alito does it for free
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Jun 25, 2021 14:13
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All of the judges, and particularly the Republican ones, get bribed all the time. They're constantly being offered trips and vacations and conferences and opportunities by various lobbyists, all with the express intention of getting them to change US policies in a certain way.
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Jun 25, 2021 14:19
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Scalia died on one of his bribery trips, for example.
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Jun 25, 2021 14:24
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Justice  had $300k in credit card debt that was supposedly for baseball tickets that vanished when he was nominated for the bench.
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Jun 25, 2021 14:25
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Thomas sleeping through oral arguments is probably the only thing he's right about. It's useless theatre.
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Jun 25, 2021 15:40
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Some more crazy lineups today.
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Jun 25, 2021 15:59
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Oh yeah lol I forgot you don't need bodycams to catch them taking bribes, the lobbyists and businessmen whose cases they're going to rule on just openly treat them to lavish vacations and extravagant gifts and nobody minds or barely notices even when one of them dies literally in the middle of cashing in.
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Jun 25, 2021 16:00
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Groovelord Neato posted:Thomas sleeping through oral arguments is probably the only thing he's right about. It's useless theatre. My law geek funtime is an unenumerated right, and ye'll have to pry it from my cold having stood in line since 3am fingers. Mr. Nice! posted:Some more crazy lineups today. quote:The third and final decision of the day was in Yellen v. Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation, and it was another case that produced an unusual line-up. Justice Sotomayor wrote for the Court, concluding that Alaska Native Corporations are Indian Tribes for purposes of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, and are therefore eligible for COVI-19 relief funding under Title V of the CARES Act. She was joined by the Chief Justice, and Justices Breyer, Kavanaugh and Barrett in full, and Justice Alito in part. Justice Gorsuch dissented, joined by Justices Thomas and Kagan.
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Jun 25, 2021 16:01
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Sarcastr0 posted:My law geek funtime is an unenumerated right, and ye'll have to pry it from my cold having stood in line since 3am fingers. Really want to see the Gorsuch dissent considering he's the big pro-Native guy
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Jun 25, 2021 16:09
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saintonan posted:Jokes on you, Alito does it for free
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Jun 25, 2021 16:26
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 Opinions! 1-2 of 3 for June 25. 5 opinions left after today.YELLEN, SECRETARY OF TREASURY v. CONFEDERATED TRIBES OF THE CHEHALIS RESERVATION ET AL. TLDR: Alaska generally doesn’t have Indian reservations. It has Alaska Native Corporations. Those are close enough to qualify for Covid relief aid dedicated to “tribal governments.” Holding / Majority Opinion (Sotomayor) In March 2020, Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, 134 Stat. 281. Title V of the Act allocates $8 billion of monetary relief to “Tribal governments.” Under the CARES Act, a “Tribal government” is the “recognized governing body of an Indian tribe” as defined in the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (ISDA). ISDA, in turn, defines an “Indian tribe” as “any Indian tribe, band, nation, or other organized group or community, including any Alaska Native village or regional or village corporation as defined in or established pursuant to the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act[,] which is recognized as eligible for the special programs and services provided by the United States to Indians because of their status as Indians.” The Department of the Treasury asked the Department of the Interior, the agency that administers ISDA, whether Alaska Native Corporations (ANCs) meet that definition. Consistent with its longstanding view, the Interior Department said yes. The Treasury Department then set aside approximately $500 million of CARES Act funding for the ANCs. The question presented is whether ANCs are “Indian tribe[s]” under ISDA, and are therefore eligible to receive the CARES Act relief set aside by the Treasury Department. The Court holds that they are. … When the United States purchased the Territory of Alaska from Russia in 1867, Alaska Natives lived in communities dispersed widely across Alaska’s 365 million acres. In the decades that followed, “[t]here was never an attempt in Alaska to isolate Indians on reservations,” as there had been in the lower 48 States. … in 1971 with the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA)...ANCSA officially dispensed with the idea of recreating in Alaska the system of reservations that prevailed in the lower 48 States. It extinguished Alaska Natives’ claims to land and hunting rights and revoked all but one of Alaska’s existing reservations. In exchange, “Congress authorized the transfer of $962.5 million in state and federal funds and approximately 44 million acres of Alaska land to state-chartered private business corporations that were to be formed pursuant to” ANCSA. These corporations are called ANCs. Relevant here, ANCs come in two varieties: regional ANCs and village ANCs. To form the regional ANCs, the Act directed the Secretary of the Interior to divide Alaska into 12 geographic regions. Within each region, Alaska Natives were instructed to “incorporate under the laws of Alaska a Regional Corporation to conduct business for profit.” To form the village ANCs, the Act identified approximately 200 Alaska “Native villages,” a term encompassing any community of 25 or more Alaska Natives living together as of the 1970 census. For each Alaska Native village, ANCSA ordered the “Native residents” to create an accompanying village corporation to “hold, invest, manage and/or distribute lands, property, funds, and other rights and assets for and on behalf ” of the village. … In 1975, four years after ANCSA’s enactment, Congress passed ISDA. ISDA answered the call for a “new national policy” of “autonomy” and “control” for Native Americans and Alaska Natives. ISDA decentralized the provision of federal Indian benefits away from the Federal Government and toward Native American and Alaska Native organizations. ISDA allows any “Indian tribe” to request that the Secretary of the Interior enter into a self-determination contract with a designated “tribal organization.” Under such a contract, the tribal organization delivers federally funded economic, infrastructure, health, or education benefits to the tribe’s membership. As originally drafted, ISDA’s “Indian tribe” definition did not mention ANCs. Prior to passage, however, the definition was amended twice to include, first, Alaska Native villages and, second, ANCs. Today, ISDA defines an “Indian tribe” as “any Indian tribe, band, nation, or other organized group or community, including any Alaska Native village or regional or village corporation as defined in or established pursuant to [ANCSA], which is recognized as eligible for the special programs and services provided by the United States to Indians because of their status as Indians.” Despite the express inclusion of ANCs in the definition of “Indian tribe,” a question arose in the Interior Department whether the “recognized-as-eligible clause” limits the definition to “federally recognized tribes” only. A federally recognized tribe is one that has entered into “a government-to-government relationship [with] the United States.”...As private companies incorporated under state law, ANCs have never been “recognized” by the United States in this sovereign political sense. In 1976, the year after ISDA’s enactment, the Interior Department’s Assistant Solicitor for Indian Affairs issued a memorandum on the status of ANCs under ISDA. In the Assistant Solicitor’s view, the express inclusion of ANCs within the definition of “Indian tribe” confirmed that ANCs are Indian tribes under ISDA, even though they are not federally recognized tribes. In the decades since, the Interior Department has repeatedly reaffirmed that position. In 2020, Congress incorporated ISDA’s “Indian tribe” definition into the CARES Act. Title V of the Act allocates $150 billion to “States, Tribal governments, and units of local government” to compensate for unbudgeted expenditures made in response to COVID–19. Of that $150 billion, $8 billion is reserved for “Tribal governments.” [Treasury set aside money for ANCs, federally recognized tribes sued since otherwise they might get that money] All but one of the respondent [federally recognized] Tribes agree that ANCs are eligible to receive the CARES Act funds in question if they are Indian tribes for purposes of ISDA. The primary question for the Court, then, is whether ANCs satisfy ISDA’s definition of “Indian tribe.” The ANCs ask the Court to answer that question by looking to the definition’s plain meaning. Respondents ask the Court to adopt a term-of-art construction that equates being “recognized as eligible for the special programs and services provided by the United States to Indians” with being a “federally recognized tribe,” i.e., a tribe recognized by the United States in a sovereign political sense. [Alito does not join this Part II-A] Starting with the plain meaning, an “Indian tribe” under ISDA is a “tribe, band, nation, or other organized group or community, including any Alaska Native village or regional or village corporation as defined in or established pursuant to [ANCSA], which is recognized as eligible for the special programs and services provided by the United States to Indians because of their status as Indians.” … ANCs, of course, are “established pursuant to” ANCSA within the meaning of the Alaska clause. They are thereby “recognized as eligible” for ANCSA’s benefits. The trickier question is whether eligibility for the benefits of ANCSA counts as eligibility for “the special programs and services provided by the United States to Indians because of their status as Indians.” It does. ANCSA is readily described as a special program provided by the United States to “Indians” (in this case, Alaska Natives). See 43 U. S. C. §1626 (describing ANCSA’s relationship to “other programs”). The scope of that program is substantial: ANCSA made ANCs eligible to select tens of millions of acres of land and receive hundreds of millions of tax-exempt dollars. … Respondents do not deny that the benefits of ANCSA are “a” special program or service provided by the United States to Indians. According to respondents, however, such benefits are not “the” special programs and services provided to Indians (e.g., healthcare, education, and other social services provided by federal agencies like the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service). “The” special programs and services, respondents assert, are available only to federally recognized tribes (or, more precisely, to members of such tribes). In respondents’ view, ANCs are thus “includ[ed]” in the “Indian tribe” definition’s Alaska clause only to be excluded en masse from that definition by the recognized-as-eligible clause. That would certainly be an odd result. Fortunately, the text does not produce it. ISDA’s “Indian tribe” definition does not specify the particular programs and services an entity must be eligible for to satisfy the recognized-as-eligible clause. Given that ANCSA is the only statute the “Indian tribe” definition mentions by name, the best reading of the definition is that being eligible for ANCSA’s benefits by itself satisfies the recognized-as-eligible clause. … Under the plain meaning of ISDA, ANCs are Indian tribes, regardless of whether they are also federally recognized tribes. In so holding, the Court does not open the door to other Indian groups that have not been federally recognized becoming Indian tribes under ISDA. Even if such groups qualify for certain federal benefits, that does not make them similarly situated to ANCs. ANCs are sui generis entities created by federal statute and granted an enormous amount of special federal benefits as part of a legislative experiment tailored to the unique circumstances of Alaska and recreated nowhere else. Moreover, with the exception of Alaska Native villages (which are now federally recognized), no entities other than ANCs are expressly “includ[ed]” by name in ISDA’s “Indian tribe” definition. [Alito does not join this Part II-B] Respondents urge this Court to discard the plain meaning of the “Indian tribe” definition in favor of a term-of-art construction. In respondents’ view, the 69 words of the “Indian tribe” definition are a long way of saying just: An “Indian tribe” means a “federally recognized tribe.” If that is right, respondents are correct that ANCs are not Indian tribes, because everyone agrees they are not federally recognized tribes. To prevail on this argument, however, respondents must demonstrate that the statutory context supports reading ISDA’s “Indian tribe” definition as a term of art rather than according to its plain meaning. Their efforts are not persuasive. In arguing for a term-of-art construction, respondents first rely on a series of Acts that terminated various tribes starting in the late 1950s. Those Acts closed tribal membership rolls, specified the division of tribal assets, and revoked tribal constitutions. Following termination, the tribe and its members were no longer “entitled to any of the special services performed by the United States for Indians because of their status as Indians.” As respondents note, this language resembles (although does not mirror precisely) the final words of ISDA’s recognized-as-eligible clause. If being terminated means no longer being “entitled to any of the special services performed by the United States for Indians because of their status as Indians,” the argument goes, then being “recognized as eligible for the special programs and services provided by the United States to Indians because of their status as Indians” means being a federally recognized tribe. … Some linguistic similarity between ISDA and the termination statutes does not suggest that the language of the recognized-as-eligible clause was an accepted way of saying “a federally recognized tribe” in 1975. It instead supports a much more limited proposition: A federally recognized tribe that has not been terminated is “entitled” to “special services performed by the United States for Indians,” and thereby satisfies ISDA’s similarly worded recognized-a-seligible clause. But of course, no one disputes that being a federally recognized tribe is one way to qualify as an Indian tribe under ISDA; it is just not the only way. … Respondents next rely on sources that postdate ISDA. Ordinarily, however, this Court reads statutory language as a term of art only when the language was used in that way at the time of the statute’s adoption. In relying on sources postdating ISDA, respondents must show not only that the language of the recognized-as-eligible clause later became a term of art, but also that this term-of-art understanding should be backdated to ISDA’s passage in 1975. They cannot make that showing. Respondents lean most heavily on the Federally Recognized Indian Tribe List Act of 1994 (List Act), enacted almost 20 years after ISDA. The List Act requires the Secretary of the Interior to publish an annual list of “all Indian tribes which the Secretary recognizes to be eligible for the special programs and services provided by the United States to Indians because of their status as Indians.” According to respondents, ANCs’ absence from the Secretary’s list confirms that they are not “eligible for the special programs and services provided by the United States to Indians because of their status as Indians,” and thus fail ISDA’s recognized-as-eligible clause. Respondents’ cross-referencing argument, however, requires the Court to ignore the reason why ANCs are not on the list. True to its full name, the Federally Recognized Indian Tribe List Act tasks the Secretary with maintaining a “‘list of federally recognized tribes’” only. NThe List Act, moreover, lacks language like that in ISDA expressly “including” ANCs “established pursuant to” ANCSA. The obvious inference, then, is that ANCs are not on the Secretary’s list simply because they are not federally recognized. ... post-ISDA sources prove no more fruitful to respondents than pre-ISDA ones. Even assuming the Court should look to events after 1975, respondents cannot cherry-pick statutes like the List Act without explaining post-enactment developments that undermine their interpretation. In the end, the various statutes cited do not support respondents’ efforts to exclude ANCs from ISDA by use of a term-of-art construction. [Alito’s back from here on out] Even if ANCs did not satisfy the recognized-as-eligible clause, however, they would still satisfy ISDA’s definition of an “Indian tribe.” If respondents were correct that only a federally recognized tribe can satisfy that clause, then the best way to read the “Indian tribe” definition as a whole would be for the recognized-as-eligible clause not to apply to the entities in the Alaska clause at all (i.e., to “any Alaska Native village or regional or village corporation”). On this reading, the way to tell whether a tribe, band, nation, or other organized group or community is an “Indian tribe” is to ask whether it is federally recognized, but the way to tell whether an Alaska Native village or corporation is an “Indian tribe” is to ask whether it is “defined in or established pursuant to” ANCSA. Otherwise, despite being prominently “includ[ed]” in the “Indian tribe” definition, all ANCs would be excluded by a federal-recognition requirement there is no reasonable prospect they could ever satisfy. Respondents object (and the dissent agrees) that this construction “produces grammatical incoherence.” They point out that a modifying clause at the end of a list (like the recognized-as-eligible clause) often applies to every item in the list. The so-called series-qualifier canon can be a helpful interpretive tool, and it supports the idea that the recognized-as-eligible clause applies to every type of entity listed in the “Indian tribe” definition, including ANCs. Given that the entities in the Alaska clause are the closest in proximity to the recognized-as-eligible clause, that canon arguably applies with particular force here. As the Court reiterated earlier this Term, however, the series-qualifier canon gives way when it would yield a “contextually implausible outcome.” Consider an example with the same syntax as the “Indian tribe” definition. A restaurant advertises “50% off any meat, vegetable, or seafood dish, including ceviche, which is cooked.” Say a customer orders ceviche, a Peruvian specialty of raw fish marinated in citrus juice. Would she expect it to be cooked? No. Would she expect to pay full price for it? Again, no. … Like applying a “cooked” requirement to ceviche, applying a “federally recognized” requirement to ANCs is implausible in context. When Congress enacted ISDA in 1975, not a single Alaska Native village or ANC had been recognized for a government-to-government relationship with the United States. On respondents’ reading, then, the entire Alaska clause originally had no effect. None of its entities qualified as Indian tribes for purposes of ISDA, even though the only entities expressly included in ISDA’s definition of an “Indian tribe” are those in the Alaska clause. … Respondents make a few final arguments to persuade the Court that ANCs are not Indian tribes under ISDA. None succeeds. Respondents argue first that the ANCs misrepresent how meaningful a role they play under ISDA because the actual number of ISDA contracts held by ANCs is negligible. The Court does not have the record before it to determine the exact number and nature of ISDA contracts held by ANCs or their designees, either historically or currently. The point is largely irrelevant, however. No one would argue that a federally recognized tribe was not an Indian tribe under ISDA just because it had never entered into an ISDA contract. The same is true for ANCs. … Respondents further argue that treating ANCs as Indian tribes would complicate the administration of ISDA. If an ISDA contract will benefit multiple Indian tribes, each such tribe has to agree to the contract before it can go into effect. Because membership in ANCs and federally recognized tribes often overlap, respondents argue that ANCs will be able to veto any ISDA contract sought by a federally recognized tribe in Alaska. Without discounting the possibility of administrative burdens, this concern is overstated. The Executive Branch has treated ANCs as Indian tribes for 45 years, yet respondents point to no evidence of such a problem ever having arisen. … Respondents also warn that blessing ANCs’ status under ISDA will give them ammunition to press for participation in the many statutes besides the CARES Act that incorporate ISDA’s “Indian tribe” definition. As the Government notes, however, there may well be statutes that incorporate ISDA’s “Indian tribe” definition but exclude ANCs from participation in other ways. Moreover, this concern cuts both ways. If respondents’ reading prevailed, ANCs would presumably be excluded from all other statutes incorporating ISDA’s definition, even those under which ANCs have long benefited. … Almost everyone agrees that if ANCs are Indian tribes under ISDA, they are eligible for funding under Title V of the CARES Act. If Congress did not want to make ANCs eligible for CARES Act funding, its decision to incorporate ISDA’s “Indian tribe” definition into the CARES Act would be inexplicable. Had Congress wished to limit CARES Act funding to federally recognized tribes, it could simply have cross-referenced the List Act instead, as it had in numerous statutes before. Instead, Congress invoked a definition that expressly includes ANCs (and has been understood for decades to include them). Today’s ruling merely gives effect to that decision. Nevertheless, the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation argues that the CARES Act excludes ANCs regardless of whether they are Indian tribes under ISDA. Recall that the CARES Act allocates money to “Tribal governments.” A “Tribal government” is “the recognized governing body of an Indian tribe.” According to the Utes, ANCs do not have a “recognized governing body” because that term applies to the governing body of a federally recognized tribe alone. As the Utes implicitly acknowledge, however, federal recognition is usually discussed in relation to tribes, not their governing bodies. In addition, the CARES Act’s use of the term “recognized governing body” is borrowed from ISDA itself, which lists the “recognized governing body” of an Indian tribe as one type of “tribal organization” empowered to contract with the government on the tribe’s behalf. In the ISDA context, this term has long been understood to apply to an ANC’s board of directors, the ANC’s governing body as a matter of corporate law. Indeed, respondents do not dispute that the plain meaning of “recognized governing body” covers an ANC’s board of directors. … Because ANCs are Indian tribes within the meaning of the CARES Act, an ANC’s board of directors is a “recognized governing body” eligible to receive funding under Title V of the Act. The Court today affirms what the Federal Government has maintained for almost half a century: ANCs are Indian tribes under ISDA. For that reason, they are Indian tribes under the CARES Act and eligible for Title V funding. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is reversed, and the cases are remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. Lineup: Sotomayor, joined by Roberts, Breyer, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, and Alito except as to Parts II-A and II-B. Dissent by Gorsuch, joined by Thomas and Kagan. Dissent (Gorsuch, joined by Thomas and Kagan) The question we must answer is whether Alaska’s for-profit Alaska Native Corporations (ANCs) qualify as “Tribal governments.” If they do, they may receive approximately $450 million of the earmarked funds; if not, the money will go to tribes across the country. ... The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 (ANCSA) sought to “settle all land claims by Alaska Natives” by “transfer[ring] $962.5 million in state and federal funds and approximately 44 million acres of Alaska land to state-chartered private business corporations” in which Alaska Natives were given shares. … Everyone agrees that ANCs are entitled to some CARES Act relief. Already, they have received benefits Congress allocated to corporations, like the Paycheck Protection Program. Congress also accounted for ANC shareholders, and all Alaskans, when it directed over $2 billion to the State. In fact, Alaska received more money per capita than all but two other States.The Alaska Native Villages received hundreds of millions of those dollars because everyone agrees they qualify as tribal governments for purposes of the CARES Act. See ibid. This suit concerns only the ANCs’ claim of entitlement to additional funds statutorily reserved for “Tribal governments.” … In the CARES Act, Congress defined a “Tribal government” as the “recognized governing body of an Indian Tribe.” In turn, Congress specified in §801(g)(1) that the term “Indian Tribe” should carry here the same meaning that it bears in the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975 (ISDA). The question before us thus becomes whether ANCs count as “Indian tribes” under the longstanding terms Congress adopted in ISDA almost 50 years ago. To resolve that dispositive question, we must answer two subsidiary ones: (1) Does the statute’s final clause (call it the recognition clause) apply to the ANCs listed earlier? (2) If so, are ANCs “recognized as eligible for the special programs and services provided by the United States to Indians because of their status as Indians”? In my view, the recognition clause does apply to ANCs along with the other listed entities. And ANCs are not “recognized” as tribes eligible for the special programs and services provided by the United States to Indians because of their status as Indians. Start with the question whether the recognition clause applies to the ANCs. As the nearest referent and part of an integrated list of other modified terms, ANCs must be subject to its terms. Unsurprisingly, the Court of Appeals reached this conclusion unanimously. Lawyers often debate whether a clause at the end of a series modifies the entire list or only the last antecedent. In ISDA, for example, some might wonder whether the recognition clause applies only to ANCs or whether it also applies to the previously listed entities—“Indian tribe[s], band[s], nation[s],” etc. But it would be passing strange to suggest that the recognition clause applies to everything except the term immediately preceding it. A clause that leaps over its nearest referent to modify every other term would defy grammatical gravity and common sense alike. … At least initially, the Court accepts the obvious and concedes that the recognition clause modifies everything in the list that precedes it. But this leaves the Court in a bind. If the recognition clause applies to ANCs, then ANCs must be “recognized” in order to receive funds. And “recognition” is a formal concept in Indian law: “Federal acknowledgement or recognition of an Indian group’s legal status as a tribe is a formal political act confirming the tribe’s existence as a distinct political society, and institutionalizing the government-to-government relationship between the tribe and the federal government.” … Admittedly, not every statutory use of the word “recognized” must carry the same meaning. But not only does ISDA arise in the field of Indian law where the term “recognition” has long carried a particular meaning. … While initially acknowledging that the recognition clause applies to ANCs, the Court interprets its terms differently. Rather than understanding it as denoting a government-to-government relationship, the Court says, we should look to its “plain meaning.” But even if we could somehow set aside everything we know about how the term is used in Indian law and the CARES Act itself, it’s far from clear what “plain meaning” the Court alludes to or how ANCs might fall within it. First, consider the Federally Recognized Indian Tribe List Act of 1994 (List Act). The List Act instructs the Secretary of the Interior to keep a list of all federally recognized Indian tribes. It does so using language materially identical to that found in ISDA’s recognition clause... the Court never attempts to explain how the plain meaning of nearly identical language in remarkably similar legal contexts might nevertheless differ. Second, on any account, ISDA requires an Indian tribe or group to be “recognized.” But what work does this term do on the Court’s interpretation? Without explanation, the Court asserts that ANCs are “‘recognized as eligible’ for ANCSA’s benefits” because they are “‘established pursuant to’ ANCSA.” But on this understanding, any group eligible for benefits would seem, on that basis alone, to be “recognized” as eligible for those benefits. … Third, even putting aside the recognition requirement, ISDA says tribes must receive services from the United States “because of their status as Indians.” The Court says that ANSCA made ANCs eligible for settlement funds and lands because its shareholders are Alaska Natives. But is compensation provided to profit-maximizing corporations whose shareholders happen to be Alaska Natives a benefit provided to Indians? ... Finally, ISDA provides that tribes must be recognized as eligible for “the special programs and services provided by the United States.” It is a small word to be sure, but “the” suggests the statute refers to a particular slate of programs and services—here the full panoply of federal Indian benefits—not just any special programs and services the government might supply. … With its first theory facing so many problems, the Court offers a backup. Now the Court suggests that ANCs qualify as tribes even if they fail to satisfy the recognition clause. Because ISDA’s opening list of entities specifically includes ANCs, the Court reasons, the recognition clause must be read as inapplicable to them alone. Essentially, the Court quietly takes us full circle to the beginning of the case—endorsing an admittedly ungrammatical reading of the statute in order to avoid what it calls the “implausible” result that ANCs might be included in ISDA’s first clause only to be excluded by its second. But it is difficult to see anything “implausible” about that result. When Congress adopted ANSCA in 1971, it “created over 200 new legal entities that overlapped with existing tribes and tribal nonprofit service organizations.” At that time, there was no List Act or statutory criteria for formal recognition. Instead, as the Court of Appeals ably documented, confusion reigned about whether and which Alaskan entities ultimately might be recognized as tribes. When Congress adopted ISDA just four years later, it sought to account for this uncertainty. The statute listed three kinds of Alaskan entities: Alaska Native Villages, Village Corporations, and Regional Corporations. And the law did “meaningful work by extending ISDA’s definition of Indian tribes” to whichever among them “ultimately were recognized.” It is perfectly plausible to think Congress chose to account for uncertainty in this way; Congress often adopts statutes whose application depends on future contingencies. … In my view, neither of the Court’s alternative theories for reversal can do the work required of it. The recognition clause denotes the formal recognition between the federal government and a tribal government that triggers eligibility for the full panoply of special benefits given to Indian tribes. Meanwhile, a fair reading of that clause indicates that it applies to ANCs. Accordingly, with respect, I would affirm. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-543_3e04.pdf HOLLYFRONTIER CHEYENNE REFINING, LLC, ET AL. v. RENEWABLE FUELS ASSOCIATION ET AL. TLDR: Small refineries can dip in and out of the “temporary” exemption from the requirement to blend ethanol into their gasoline. Holding / Majority Opinion (Gorsuch) Congress requires most domestic refineries to blend a certain amount of ethanol and other renewable fuels into the transportation fuels they produce. But when it first adopted these mandates, Congress temporarily exempted small refineries across the board. Looking beyond that initial period, Congress authorized individual small refineries to apply for additional hardship “extensions” from the federal government “at any time.” The question before us is whether a small refinery that manages to comply with renewable fuel mandates in one year is forever forbidden from applying for an “extension” in any future year. In 2005 and 2007, Congress created the renewable fuel program (RFP).For 2006, Congress ordained the inclusion of 4 billion gallons of renewable fuel in the Nation’s fuel supply. By 2022, the number will climb to 36 billion gallons. … From the start, EPA has apportioned the nationwide volume mandates into individualized ones for each refinery. The Agency polices these mandates with a system of credits. Each credit represents the blending of a certain quantity of renewable fuel. A refinery that blends renewables may either “retire” the credits it has earned (i.e., use them) to satisfy its own RFP volume obligation—or sell those credits to a different producer that needs them. Any given refinery may therefore comply with the law thanks to its own blending efforts, the purchase of credits from someone else, or a combination of both. … To protect small refineries that produce (on average) fewer than 75,000 barrels a day “for a calendar year,” Congress created a blanket exemption from RFP obligations “until calendar year 2011”. Congress also directed EPA to “extend the exemption under clause (i)” for at least two years if the Secretary of Energy determined RFP obligations would impose “a disproportionate economic hardship” on a given small refinery. Accordingly, subparagraph (A) anticipated temporary relief until 2011 or at least 2013. In the next subparagraph, the one most squarely at issue before us, Congress offered the possibility of still further relief in future years: “A small refinery may at any time petition the Administrator for an extension of the exemption under subparagraph (A) for the reason of disproportionate economic hardship.” This case concerns three small refineries that initially received an exemption, saw it lapse for a period, and then petitioned for an exemption again...EPA granted all three. A group of renewable fuel producers objected...The court vacated EPA’s decisions. It concluded the refineries were ineligible for an “extension” of their exemptions because all three had allowed their exemptions to lapse at some point in the past. ... Before us, the parties agree on one thing: The key word here—“extension”—is nowhere defined in the statute and it can mean different things depending on context. Sometimes, as the renewable fuel producers observe and the court of appeals held, an “extension” can refer to an increase in time. we agree with the renewable fuel producers and the court of appeals that subparagraph (B)(i) uses “extension” in its temporal sense—referring to the lengthening of a period of time. … Resolving that much, however, does not resolve this case. Really, it only takes us to the heart of the dispute. The Tenth Circuit didn’t just hold that an extension means an increase in time—it imposed a continuity requirement. On that court’s view, a small refinery becomes permanently ineligible for a further extension of time once its exemption lapses. Even accepting that subparagraph (B)(i) uses the term “extension” in its temporal sense, the small refineries submit this was error. On their view, small refineries whose exemptions have lapsed in one year may still seek an “extension” in a following year. Indeed, the small refineries candidly characterize this as their stronger argument for reversal. We agree. It is entirely natural—and consistent with ordinary usage—to seek an “extension” of time even after some lapse. Think of the forgetful student who asks for an “extension” for a term paper after the deadline has passed, the tenant who does the same after overstaying his lease, or parties who negotiate an “extension” of a contract after its expiration. Perhaps for reasons like these, the respondents and court of appeals are unable to point to a single dictionary definition of the term “extension” requiring unbroken continuity. … Everything else the respondents offer in defense of the court of appeals’ judgment involves surmise about legislative purpose and arguments from public policy. … The respondents have not shown that EPA’s approval of the petitioners’ extension requests was in excess of the Agency’s statutory authority. To the extent the court of appeals vacated EPA’s orders on this ground, the judgment is Reversed. Lineup: Gorsuch, joined by Roberts, Thomas, Breyer, Alito, and Kavanaugh, and Barrett. Dissent by Barrett, joined by Sotomayor and Kagan. Dissent (Barrett, joined by Sotomayor and Kagan): When Congress amended the Clean Air Act to add the Renewable Fuel Program (RFP), it gave small refineries a temporary exemption from compliance. Congress then vested the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with authority to grant “extension[s] of the exemption” in certain instances. The question in this case is straightforward: Does this provision limit EPA to prolonging exemptions currently in place, or does it enable EPA to provide exemptions to refineries that lack them? The statute’s text and structure direct a clear answer: EPA cannot “extend” an exemption that a refinery no longer has. Because the Court’s contrary conclusion caters to an outlier meaning of “extend” and clashes with statutory structure, I respectfully dissent. … HollyFrontier lays its cards on the table. It does not dispute that when used to refer to “an increase in the length of time,” the word “extension” can—and commonly does— refer to something that is prolonged without interruption. Yet, HollyFrontier insists, the term “extension” is not always used that way. Instead, it might sometimes refer to a “non-continuous extension”—in other words, an extension of something that used to exist but no longer does. … Boiled down, the Court’s position is that HollyFrontier wins because its reading is possible. But I would ask, as we typically do, how the term “extension” “is most naturally read.” The Tenth Circuit’s answer to that question is spot on: The “ordinary definitions of ‘extension,’ along with common sense, dictate that the subject of an extension must be in existence before it can be extended.” … By dismissing the need for a continuing connection between the first period and the second, the Court forgoes the “far more natural” reading of extend. The upshot? A refinery could ask to “extend” an exemption it had in 2010 in the year 2040, with no need to connect the two periods. It defies ordinary usage to deem the second exemption “an extension” of the first, as opposed to a new, standalone exemption. HollyFrontier recognizes as much, seeking to deflect this example as “extreme” and “highly unlikely.” Unlikely or not, it follows logically from HollyFrontier’s reading of “extension”—which shows just how far this interpretation strays from the term’s ordinary meaning. … Four structural features of the RFP, in particular, cut for respondents’ interpretation and against the Court’s. First, respondents’ reading of “extension” tracks the only other use of the term in the RFP. A nearby “[w]aiver” provision allows EPA to issue an “order to reduce, for up to a 60-day period,” the biomass-based diesel fuel requirements under certain conditions. In a related provision entitled “[e]xtensions,” Congress authorized EPA to reduce those requirements “for up to an additional 60- day period” based on an assessment that the conditions are “continuing beyond” the original “60-day period.” This provision, like respondents’ interpretation, uses “extension” to reference a continuation of something that presently exists. Second, the RFP is replete with express grants of waiver authority of the type the Court reads into subparagraph (B)(i)’s reference to “extension[s].” The statute’s “general” waiver provision specifies that EPA, under certain economic or fuel-market conditions, “may waive the requirements” of the RFP “in whole or in part on petition by” refineries, among other entities. As discussed, EPA also has express standalone waiver authority with respect to biomass-based diesel levels. Elsewhere, the statute authorizes EPA to “waive, in whole or in part, the renewable fuel requirement[s]” following a finding that compliance would have a significant adverse impact on consumers at the outset of the program. Together, these nearby RFP provisions show that Congress had an “easy way” to delegate standalone waiver authority when it wished. … Third, note that when assessing petitions for an “extension of the exemption,” EPA must consider “the findings of the study under subparagraph (A)(ii)”—i.e., the Department of Energy study to be completed by 2008. The Court’s reading will require EPA to examine the 2008 study when evaluating “extension” petitions filed decades from now—say, in 2050—even though the refinery may have had long stretches of compliance in the interim. If Congress intended exemption “extension[s]”—or waivers, as the Court treats them—to remain available for decades, why would it instruct EPA to keep evaluating them in light of a 2008 study? … Fourth, other provisions help ease the burden on small refineries in times of economic hardship. To ensure that EPA can appropriately adjust the RFP requirements it sets, the statute requires EPA to review “the feasibility of achieving compliance” and “impacts of ” the RFP on regulated refineries. And if compliance is not feasible in a given year, the RFP allows individual refineries to carry a compliance deficit into the next year. … In the end, the parties’ dueling accounts of purpose underscore the wisdom of sticking to the statutory text and structure. Because, in my view, both clearly favor respondents’ reading, I respectfully dissent. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-472_0pm1.pdf
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Jun 25, 2021 16:52
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No one gives a poo poo about cameras in court rooms, you already don't listen to the oral arguments you aren't going to start watching them
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Jun 25, 2021 17:44
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Opinions! 3 of 3 for June 25. 5 opinions left after today. TRANSUNION LLC v. RAMIREZ TLDR: A credit agency screwing up your credit report isn’t a harm under the Fair Credit Reporting Act unless they give that bad report to a third party. Holding / Majority Opinion (Kavanaugh) To have Article III standing to sue in federal court, plaintiffs must demonstrate, among other things, that they suffered a concrete harm. No concrete harm, no standing. Central to assessing concreteness is whether the asserted harm has a “close relationship” to a harm traditionally recognized as providing a basis for a lawsuit in American courts—such as physical harm, monetary harm, or various intangible harms including (as relevant here) reputational harm. In this case, a class of 8,185 individuals sued TransUnion, a credit reporting agency, in federal court under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The plaintiffs claimed that TransUnion failed to use reasonable procedures to ensure the accuracy of their credit files, as maintained internally by TransUnion. For 1,853 of the class members, TransUnion provided misleading credit reports to third-party businesses. We conclude that those 1,853 class members have demonstrated concrete reputational harm and thus have Article III standing to sue on the reasonable-procedures claim. The internal credit files of the other 6,332 class members were not provided to third-party businesses during the relevant time period. We conclude that those 6,332 class members have not demonstrated concrete harm and thus lack Article III standing to sue on the reasonable-procedures claim. ... In 1970, Congress passed and President Nixon signed the Fair Credit Reporting Act. 84 Stat. 1127. The Act seeks to promote “fair and accurate credit reporting” and to protect consumer privacy. To achieve those goals, the Act regulates the consumer reporting agencies that compile and disseminate personal information about consumers. The Act “imposes a host of requirements concerning the creation and use of consumer reports.” Three of the Act’s requirements are relevant to this case. First, the Act requires consumer reporting agencies to “follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy” in consumer reports. Second, the Act provides that consumer reporting agencies must, upon request, disclose to the consumer “[a]ll information in the consumer’s file at the time of the request.” Third, the Act compels consumer reporting agencies to “provide to a consumer, with each written disclosure by the agency to the consumer,” a “summary of rights” prepared by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The Act creates a cause of action for consumers to sue and recover damages for certain violations. The Act provides: “Any person who willfully fails to comply with any requirement imposed under this subchapter with respect to any consumer is liable to that consumer” for actual damages or for statutory damages not less than $100 and not more than $1,000, as well as for punitive damages and attorney’s fees. … Beginning in 2002, TransUnion introduced an add-on product called OFAC Name Screen Alert. OFAC is the U. S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. OFAC maintains a list of “specially designated nationals” who threaten America’s national security. Individuals on the OFAC list are terrorists, drug traffickers, or other serious criminals. It is generally unlawful to transact business with any person on the list. … When this litigation arose, Name Screen worked in the following way: When a business opted into the Name Screen service, TransUnion would conduct its ordinary credit check of the consumer, and it would also use third-party software to compare the consumer’s name against the OFAC list. If the consumer’s first and last name matched the first and last name of an individual on OFAC’s list, then TransUnion would place an alert on the credit report indicating that the consumer’s name was a “potential match” to a name on the OFAC list. TransUnion did not compare any data other than first and last names. Unsurprisingly, TransUnion’s Name Screen product generated many false positives. Thousands of law-abiding Americans happen to share a first and last name with one of the terrorists, drug traffickers, or serious criminals on OFAC’s list of specially designated nationals. Sergio Ramirez learned the hard way that he is one such individual...A Nissan salesman told Ramirez that Nissan would not sell the car to him because his name was on a “‘terrorist list.’” … The next day, Ramirez called TransUnion and requested a copy of his credit file. TransUnion sent Ramirez a mailing that same day that included his credit file and the statutorily required summary of rights prepared by the CFPB. … In February 2012, Ramirez sued TransUnion and alleged three violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. First, he alleged that TransUnion, by using the Name Screen product, failed to follow reasonable procedures to ensure the accuracy of information in his credit file. Second, he claimed that TransUnion failed to provide him with all the information in his credit file upon his request. In particular, TransUnion’s first mailing did not include the fact that Ramirez’s name was a potential match for a name on the OFAC list.Third, Ramirez asserted that TransUnion violated its obligation to provide him with a summary of his rights “with each written disclosure,” because TransUnion’s second mailing did not contain a summary of Ramirez’s rights. Ramirez requested statutory and punitive damages. [and a class action] … The question in this case is whether the 8,185 class members have Article III standing as to their three claims. … Article III confines the federal judicial power to the resolution of “Cases” and “Controversies.” For there to be a case or controversy under Article III, the plaintiff must have a “‘personal stake’” in the case—in other words, standing. To demonstrate their personal stake, plaintiffs must be able to sufficiently answer the question: “‘What’s it to you?’” To answer that question in a way sufficient to establish standing, a plaintiff must show (i) that he suffered an injury in fact that is concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent; (ii) that the injury was likely caused by the defendant; and (iii) that the injury would likely be redressed by judicial relief. If “the plaintiff does not claim to have suffered an injury that the defendant caused and the court can remedy, there is no case or controversy for the federal court to resolve.” … The question in this case focuses on the Article III requirement that the plaintiff ’s injury in fact be “concrete”— that is, “real, and not abstract.” … certain harms readily qualify as concrete injuries under Article III. The most obvious are traditional tangible harms, such as physical harms and monetary harms. If a defendant has caused physical or monetary injury to the plaintiff, the plaintiff has suffered a concrete injury in fact under Article III. Various intangible harms can also be concrete. Chief among them are injuries with a close relationship to harms traditionally recognized as providing a basis for lawsuits in American courts. Those include, for example, reputational harms, disclosure of private information, and intrusion upon seclusion. … Congress’s creation of a statutory prohibition or obligation and a cause of action does not relieve courts of their responsibility to independently decide whether a plaintiff has suffered a concrete harm under Article III any more than, for example, Congress’s enactment of a law regulating speech relieves courts of their responsibility to independently decide whether the law violates the First Amendment. As Judge Katsas has rightly stated, “we cannot treat an injury as ‘concrete’ for Article III purposes based only on Congress’s say-so.” … For standing purposes, therefore, an important difference exists between (i) a plaintiff ’s statutory cause of action to sue a defendant over the defendant’s violation of federal law, and (ii) a plaintiff ’s suffering concrete harm because of the defendant’s violation of federal law. Congress may enact legal prohibitions and obligations. And Congress may create causes of action for plaintiffs to sue defendants who violate those legal prohibitions or obligations. But under Article III, an injury in law is not an injury in fact. Only those plaintiffs who have been concretely harmed by a defendant’s statutory violation may sue that private defendant over that violation in federal court. … The plaintiffs argue that TransUnion failed to comply with statutory obligations (i) to follow reasonable procedures to ensure the accuracy of credit files so that the files would not include OFAC alerts labeling the plaintiffs as potential terrorists; and (ii) to provide a consumer, upon request, with his or her complete credit file, including a summary of rights. … Start with the 1,853 class members (including the named plaintiff Ramirez) whose reports were disseminated to third-party businesses. The plaintiffs argue that the publication to a third party of a credit report bearing a misleading OFAC alert injures the subject of the report. The plaintiffs contend that this injury bears a “close relationship” to a harm traditionally recognized as providing a basis for a lawsuit in American courts—namely, the reputational harm associated with the tort of defamation. We agree with the plaintiffs. Under longstanding American law, a person is injured when a defamatory statement “that would subject him to hatred, contempt, or ridicule” is published to a third party. TransUnion provided third parties with credit reports containing OFAC alerts that labeled the class members as potential terrorists, drug traffickers, or serious criminals. The 1,853 class members therefore suffered a harm with a “close relationship” to the harm associated with the tort of defamation. We have no trouble concluding that the 1,853 class members suffered a concrete harm that qualifies as an injury in fact. … The remaining 6,332 class members are a different story. To be sure, their credit files, which were maintained by TransUnion, contained misleading OFAC alerts. But the parties stipulated that TransUnion did not provide those plaintiffs’ credit information to any potential creditors during the class period from January 2011 to July 2011. Given the absence of dissemination, we must determine whether the 6,332 class members suffered some other concrete harm for purposes of Article III. The initial question is whether the mere existence of a misleading OFAC alert in a consumer’s internal credit file at TransUnion constitutes a concrete injury. As Judge Tatel phrased it in a similar context, “if inaccurate information falls into” a consumer’s credit file, “does it make a sound?” Writing the opinion for the D. C. Circuit in Owner-Operator, Judge Tatel answered no. Publication is “essential to liability” in a suit for defamation. And there is “no historical or common-law analog where the mere existence of inaccurate information, absent dissemination, amounts to concrete injury. … The standing inquiry in this case thus distinguishes between (i) credit files that consumer reporting agencies maintain internally and (ii) the consumer credit reports that consumer reporting agencies disseminate to thirdparty creditors. The mere presence of an inaccuracy in an internal credit file, if it is not disclosed to a third party, causes no concrete harm. … Here, the 6,332 plaintiffs did not demonstrate that the risk of future harm materialized—that is, that the inaccurate OFAC alerts in their internal TransUnion credit files were ever provided to third parties or caused a denial of credit. Nor did those plaintiffs present evidence that the class members were independently harmed by their exposure to the risk itself—that is, that they suffered some other injury (such as an emotional injury) from the mere risk that their credit reports would be provided to third-party businesses. Therefore, the 6,332 plaintiffs’ argument for standing for their damages claims based on an asserted risk of future harm is unavailing. We next address the plaintiffs’ standing to recover damages for two other claims in the complaint: the disclosure claim and the summary-of-rights claim. Those two claims are intertwined. In the disclosure claim, the plaintiffs alleged that TransUnion breached its obligation to provide them with their complete credit files upon request. According to the plaintiffs, TransUnion sent the plaintiffs copies of their credit files that omitted the OFAC information, and then in a second mailing sent the OFAC information. In the summary-of-rights claim, the plaintiffs further asserted that TransUnion should have included another summary of rights in that second mailing—the mailing that included the OFAC information. … the plaintiffs have not demonstrated that the format of TransUnion’s mailings caused them a harm with a close relationship to a harm traditionally recognized as providing a basis for a lawsuit in American courts. In fact, they do not demonstrate that they suffered any harm at all from the formatting violations. The plaintiffs presented no evidence that, other than Ramirez, “a single other class member so much as opened the dual mailings,” “nor that they were confused, distressed, or relied on the information in any way.” The plaintiffs put forth no evidence, moreover, that the plaintiffs would have tried to correct their credit files—and thereby prevented dissemination of a misleading report—had they been sent the information in the proper format. Ibid. Without any evidence of harm caused by the format of the mailings, these are “bare procedural violation[s], divorced from any concrete harm.” That does not suffice for Article III standing. … We reverse the judgment of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. In light of our conclusion about Article III standing, we need not decide whether Ramirez’s claims were typical of the claims of the class under Rule 23. On remand, the Ninth Circuit may consider in the first instance whether class certification is appropriate in light of our conclusion about standing. It is so ordered. Lineup: Kavanaugh, joined by Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, and Barrett. Dissent by Thomas, joined by Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan. Dissent by Kagan, joined by Breyer and Sotomayor. Dissent (Thomas, joined by Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan) TransUnion generated credit reports that erroneously flagged many law-abiding people as potential terrorists and drug traffickers. In doing so, TransUnion violated several provisions of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) that entitle consumers to accuracy in credit-reporting procedures; to receive information in their credit files; and to receive a summary of their rights. Yet despite Congress’ judgment that such misdeeds deserve redress, the majority decides that TransUnion’s actions are so insignificant that the Constitution prohibits consumers from v indicating their rights in federal court. The Constitution does no such thing. … The mere filing of a complaint in federal court, however, does not a case (or controversy) make. Article III “does not extend the judicial power to every violation of the constitution” or federal law “which may possibly take place.” Rather, the power extends only “to ‘a case in law or equity,’ in which a right, under such law, is asserted.” Key to the scope of the judicial power, then, is whether an individual asserts his or her own rights. At the time of the founding, whether a court possessed judicial power over an action with no showing of actual damages depended on whether the plaintiff sought to enforce a right held privately by an individual or a duty owed broadly to the community. Where an individual sought to sue someone for a violation of his private rights, such as trespass on his land, the plaintiff needed only to allege the violation. Courts typically did not require any showing of actual damage. SBut where an individual sued based on the violation of a duty owed broadly to the whole community, such as the overgrazing of public lands, courts required “not only injuria [legal injury] but also damnum [damage].” ... The principle that the violation of an individual right gives rise to an actionable harm was widespread at the founding, in early American history, and in many modern cases. And this understanding accords proper respect for the power of Congress and other legislatures to define legal rights. No one could seriously dispute, for example, that a violation of property rights is actionable, but as a general matter, “[p]roperty rights are created by the State.” In light of this history, tradition, and common practice, our test should be clear: So long as a “statute fixes a minimum of recovery . . . , there would seem to be no doubt of the right of one who establishes a technical ground of action to recover this minimum sum without any specific showing of loss.” While the Court today discusses the supposed failure to show “injury in fact,” courts for centuries held that injury in law to a private right was enough to create a case or controversy. Here, each class member established a violation of his or her private rights. The jury found that TransUnion violated three separate duties created by statute. See App. 690. All three of those duties are owed to individuals, not to the community writ large. … Were there any doubt that consumer reporting agencies owe these duties to specific individuals—and not to the larger community—Congress created a cause of action providing that “[a]ny person who willfully fails to comply” with an FCRA requirement “with respect to any consumer is liable to that consumer.” If a consumer reporting agency breaches any FCRA duty owed to a specific consumer, then that individual (not all consumers) may sue the agency. No one disputes that each class member possesses this cause of action. And no one disputes that the jury found that TransUnion violated each class member’s individual rights. The plaintiffs thus have a sufficient injury to sue in federal court. … The Court chooses a different approach. Rejecting this history, the majority holds that the mere violation of a personal legal right is not—and never can be—an injury sufficient to establish standing. What matters for the Court is only that the “injury in fact be ‘concrete.’” Ante, at 8. “No concrete harm, no standing.” That may be a pithy catchphrase, but it is worth pausing to ask why “concrete” injury in fact should be the sole inquiry. After all, it was not until 1970—“180 years after the ratification of Article III”—that this Court even introduced the “injury in fact” (as opposed to injury in law) concept of standing. And the concept then was not even about constitutional standing; it concerned a statutory cause of action under the Administrative Procedure Act. … No matter if the right is personal or if the legislature deems the right worthy of legal protection, legislatures are constitutionally unable to offer the protection of the federal courts for anything other than money, bodily integrity, and anything else that this Court thinks looks close enough to rights existing at common law. The 1970s injury-in-fact theory has now displaced the traditional gateway into federal courts. This approach is remarkable in both its novelty and effects. Never before has this Court declared that legal injury is inherently insufficient to support standing.5 And never before has this Court declared that legislatures are constitutionally precluded from creating legal rights enforceable in federal court if those rights deviate too far from their common-law roots. According to the majority, courts alone have the power to sift and weigh harms to decide whether they merit the Federal Judiciary’s attention. In the name of protecting the separation of powers, this Court has relieved the legislature of its power to create and define rights. Even assuming that this Court should be in the business of second-guessing private rights, this is a rather odd case to say that Congress went too far. TransUnion’s misconduct here is exactly the sort of thing that has long merited legal redress. … But even setting aside everything already mentioned— the Constitution’s text, history, precedent, financial harm, libel, the risk of publication, and actual disclosure to a third party—one need only tap into common sense to know that receiving a letter identifying you as a potential drug trafficker or terrorist is harmful. All the more so when the information comes in the context of a credit report, the entire purpose of which is to demonstrate that a person can be trusted. And if this sort of confusing and frustrating communication is insufficient to establish a real injury, one wonders what could rise to that level. If, instead of falsely identifying Ramirez as a potential drug trafficker or terrorist, TransUnion had flagged him as a “potential” child molester, would that alone still be insufficient to open the courthouse doors? What about falsely labeling a person a racist? Including a slur on the report? Or what about openly reducing a person’s credit score by several points because of his race? If none of these constitutes an injury in fact, how can that possibly square with our past cases indicating that the inability to “observe an animal species, even for purely esthetic purposes, . . . undeniably” is? ... fn9(Today’s decision might actually be a pyrrhic victory for TransUnion. The Court does not prohibit Congress from creating statutory rights for consumers; it simply holds that federal courts lack jurisdiction to hear some of these cases. That combination may leave state courts—which “are not bound by the limitations of a case or controversy or other federal rules of justiciability even when they address issues of federal law,”—as the sole forum for such cases, with defendants unable to seek removal to federal court. By declaring that federal courts lack jurisdiction, the Court has thus ensured that state courts will exercise exclusive jurisdiction over these sorts of class actions.) … Ultimately, the majority seems to pose to the reader a single rhetorical question: Who could possibly think that a person is harmed when he requests and is sent an incomplete credit report, or is sent a suspicious notice informing him that he may be a designated drug trafficker or terrorist, or is not sent anything informing him of how to remove this inaccurate red flag? The answer is, of course, legion: Congress, the President, the jury, the District Court, the Ninth Circuit, and four Members of this Court. I respectfully dissent. Dissent (Kagan, joined by Breyer and Sotomayor) The familiar story of Article III standing depicts the doctrine as an integral aspect of judicial restraint. The caseor-controversy requirement of Article III, the account runs, is “built on a single basic idea—the idea of separation of powers.” Rigorous standing rules help safeguard that separation by keeping the courts away from issues “more appropriately addressed in the representative branches.” In so doing, those rules prevent courts from overstepping their “proper—and properly limited—role” in “a democratic society.” After today’s decision, that story needs a rewrite. The Court here transforms standing law from a doctrine of judicial modesty into a tool of judicial aggrandizement. It holds, for the first time, that a specific class of plaintiffs whom Congress allowed to bring a lawsuit cannot do so under Article III. I join JUSTICE THOMAS’s dissent, which explains why the majority’s decision is so mistaken. As he recounts, our Article III precedents teach that Congress has broad “power to create and define rights.” And Congress may protect those rights by authorizing suits not only for past harms but also for the material risk of future ones. Under those precedents, this case should be easy. In the Fair Credit Reporting Act, Congress determined to protect consumers’ reputations from inaccurate credit reporting. TransUnion willfully violated that statute’s provisions by preparing credit files that falsely called the plaintiffs potential terrorists, and by obscuring that fact when the plaintiffs requested copies of their files. To say, as the majority does, that the resulting injuries did not “‘exist’ in the real world” is to inhabit a world I don’t know. And to make that claim in the face of Congress’s contrary judgment is to exceed the judiciary’s “proper—and properly limited—role.” … I add a few words about the majority’s view of the risks of harm to the plaintiffs. In addressing the claim that TransUnion failed to maintain accurate credit files, the majority argues that the “risk of dissemination” of the plaintiffs’ credit information to third parties is “too speculative.” But why is it so speculative that a company in the business of selling credit reports to third parties will in fact sell a credit report to a third party? … I sign up with JUSTICE THOMAS: “[O]ne need only tap into common sense to know that receiving a letter identifying you as a potential drug trafficker or terrorist is harmful.” I differ with JUSTICE THOMAS on just one matter, unlikely to make much difference in practice. In his view, any “violation of an individual right” created by Congress gives rise to Article III standing. But in Spokeo, this Court held that “Article III requires a concrete injury even in the context of a statutory violation.” I continue to adhere to that view, but think it should lead to the same result as JUSTICE THOMAS’s approach in all but highly unusual cases. As Spokeo recognized, “Congress is well positioned to identify [both tangible and] intangible harms” meeting Article III standards. Article III requires for concreteness only a “real harm” (that is, a harm that “actually exist[s]”) or a “risk of real harm.” Ibid. And as today’s decision definitively proves, Congress is better suited than courts to determine when something causes a harm or risk of harm in the real world. For that reason, courts should give deference to those congressional judgments. Overriding an authorization to sue is appropriate when but only when Congress could not reasonably have thought that a suit will contribute to compensating or preventing the harm at issue. Subject to that qualification, I join JUSTICE THOMAS’s dissent in full. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-297_4g25.pdf
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Jun 25, 2021 18:00
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EwokEntourage posted:No one gives a poo poo about cameras in court rooms, you already don't listen to the oral arguments you aren't going to start watching them I specifically don't listen to the oral arguments. If I only read the transcripts, I can pretend that my fundamental rights aren't being judged by my grandparents (this was more true when Ginsburg was on the Court, of course). If I listen to the voices, it's too obvious.
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Jun 25, 2021 18:02
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So credit unions can slap a big red [TERRORIST] stamp on your credit report and there's nothing you can do to redress that legally until somebody else gets a hold of that report? lmao okay. quote:Here, the 6,332 plaintiffs did not demonstrate that the risk of future harm materialized—that is, that the inaccurate OFAC alerts in their internal TransUnion credit files were ever provided to third parties or caused a denial of credit. Nor did those plaintiffs present evidence that the class members were independently harmed by their exposure to the risk itself—that is, that they suffered some other injury (such as an emotional injury) from the mere risk that their credit reports would be provided to third-party businesses. Therefore, the 6,332 plaintiffs’ argument for standing for their damages claims based on an asserted risk of future harm is unavailing. "You guys just didn't appear stressed out enough that TransUnion had decided you're terrorists, sorry but no standing for you."
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Jun 25, 2021 18:07
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Sydin posted:"You guys just didn't appear stressed out enough that TransUnion had decided you're terrorists, sorry but no standing for you." The point of credit reporting agencies is to provide information for other institutions to make credit decisions. If that information was never transmitted to an institution and otherwise wasn't ever used, I don't think that person was really harmed.
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Jun 25, 2021 18:33
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you can sue them in state courts
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Jun 25, 2021 18:35
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saintonan posted:The point of credit reporting agencies is to provide information for other institutions to make credit decisions. If that information was never transmitted to an institution and otherwise wasn't ever used, I don't think that person was really harmed. I think Thomas really has it on point with "If someone labels you a terrorist and you are not one, you are harmed by that"
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Jun 25, 2021 19:25
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AtomikKrab posted:I think Thomas really has it on point with "If someone labels you a terrorist and you are not one, you are harmed by that" If someone used that "terrorist" designation to deny credit or put you on a no-fly list, or disclose it to current or potential employers, that's a clear harm, and it looks like 1600+ people were harmed in that way. That part of the case will continue. But if I create a database that says "AtomikKrab is a butthole", but you're the only one who can see it, how are you being harmed? You may not like me very much, but you didn't suffer any actual harm.
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Jun 25, 2021 19:42
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