WHAT STATES CAN DO ABOUT EPIC DECISION | Hot New Book On Corporate Power and Supreme Court | A Good Laugh Is Best AT SCOTUS
May 23, 2018
AN EPIC DECISION
|“False dichotomy, meretricious piety, and pay-no-attention-to-that-man-behind-the-curtain misdirection are vital arrows in the quiver of any lawyer or judge, no matter of what persuasion. These tricks were on particularly egregious display in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, a 5-4 decision announced Monday in which the Supreme Court’s conservative majority continued its drive to narrow protection for employee rights.” That’s Garrett Epps writing in The Atlantic about this week’s Epic decision noting that it may be a sign of what’s to come in the court majority’s next battle on arbitration.
ALL THE TOOLS IN THE TOOLBOX
|Daniel Hemel with Slate suggests that now that the Supreme Court has sided with employers in the Epic case, states should act to counteract the consequences of individual arbitration mandates. “Governors, state lawmakers, mayors, and city council members can take concrete steps in the coming months to protect their constituents from the fallout of Monday’s decision. And workers’ rights advocates ought to demand action from their state and local leaders.” Hemel outlines some potential strategies local governments can pursue but argues that it may be best to employ more than one strategy at a time so that if one fails, others might serve as backups. “It’s a more promising approach than the alternatives, and one that—to borrow JUSTICE GINSBURG’S words—is ‘urgently in order.’”
HOT NEW BOOK REVIEW
|UCLA law professor ADAM WINKLER’S new book details how corporations won their own civil rights movement and achieved the same rights as ordinary people. From freedom of speech to religious liberty and “personhood,” Corporate America successfully used the Supreme Court to boost the power of big business. Winkler says, “We think of the Supreme Court as a bulwark to protect minorities but it’s used that power much more often to protect the rich and powerful.” John Blake with CNN interviewed Winkler about the book and some of the consequences of corporate America’s unchecked power in this country.
PASSING OFF PRECEDENT
|Scott Bomboy with Constitution Daily takes a look at the 41-year-old Supreme Court precedent about union dues and public-worker unions set in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education that is likely to be overturned this term. He reviews Abood and looks ahead to the anticipated Janus v. AFSCME decision that is expected by late June.
EPIC DISTORTION
|Say what you want about JUSTICE SCALIA, but at the very least he was pretty straightforward about how his rulings favored big corporations and monopolists. The same can’t be said about his successor, JUSTICE NEIL GORSUCH. Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern rips the newest justice for his Epic decision that “does not comport with reality.” MJS writes, “Gorsuch may claim that workers voluntarily agree to mandatory arbitration when they’re told to either accept it or quit. But the rest of us have no obligation to pretend that these coercive ‘agreements’ are anything other than a gun to the head.”
LOLOLOLOL
|Lynne Liberato writes in The National Law Journal about the time she got the late JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA to share in a laugh. In her piece titled, “When it Comes to Sharing a Laugh at SCOTUS, the Late Justice Scalia is Still Supreme” she talks about her 1993 Supreme Court debut in which she made the justice indulge in perhaps one of the longest laughs ever heard at One First.
OTHER NEWS
A Supreme Court Decision That Was A Wild Card
The New York Times“Five months later, the Supreme Court issued a ruling that would allow states to legalize sports betting. The decision — which struck down a 1992 law that effectively banned commercial sports betting in most states — would have unusually strong ripple effects across several desks at The Times, and it has the potential to reshape coverage for years to come.”
Transgender Student In Bathroom Dispute Wins Court Ruling
The New York Times“A federal judge in Virginia has found in favor of a transgender student whose efforts to use the boys’ bathrooms at his high school reached the Supreme Court and thrust him into the middle of a national debate about the rights of transgender students. In an order handed down on Tuesday, Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia denied a motion by the Gloucester County school board to dismiss the lawsuit brought by the student, Gavin Grimm.”