Today’s Supreme Court Decision

I found the Supreme Court’s decision in three cases before them on employees’ right to sue an employer in a class action suit interesting on a number of grounds. See the analysis of the opinion at SCOTUSBlog here.

I’m uncomfortable with putting a thumb on the scales of justice in favor of large corporations as the decision would appear to do but that isn’t the only thing I found interesting in the decision. The decision highlight a schism within the court which IMO goes far beyond conservatives and liberals, strict and loose constructionists, or Democrats and Republicans but to the very nature of the U. S. courts and U. S. law. Congress has the power to restore the status quo ante; this decision wasn’t one of constitutional law.

The dissenting justices led by Ruth Bader Ginsburg rather clearly take the position that their role is to find the right policy and then figure out a way to make the law support it. It seems to me that’s a formula for long-lasting social problems. The concurring justices, however they’re castigated, equally clearly defined their position as following the law wherever it took them.

I’m not just worried about corporations having too much power. I’m also concerned about unanswerable judges having too much power. Our system by design grants much power to the Congress and gives the people power over Congress through the short terms granted to members of the House. For a variety of reasons our system is not functioning as designed. Rather than having the courts arrogate the power of the Congress to themselves, we should figure out why our system is not functioning as designed and correct that.

I wish someone better informed than I would comment on this. I’ll hunt around to see if I can find some good commentary on just this topic.

2 comments… add one
  • PD Shaw Link

    As you wrote, its not a Constitutional issue, so Congress always has the ability to weigh-in. Basically, though this seems to be the argument:

    Majority: We’re following the 1925 Federal Arbitration Act.
    Dissent: We’re following the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, which implicitly overruled the 1925 law.
    Majority: How could it implicitly overrule the law when no court or agency thought so until 2012?
    Dissent: The issue never came up before.

    YMMV, but the notion that laws passed over 80 years ago would offer an obvious solution to situations today which “never came up before” is not comforting.

  • Which just supports my belief that every law enacted by Congress, a state legislature, or local body should have an expiry date. There’s a rule against perpetuities except in the case of law where it’s the norm.

Leave a Comment