PrawfsBlawg

Universal injunctions are good again

So says a Trump-appointed judge on the Western District of Louisiana in a challenge by a red state (Louisiana) to a Biden Administration's pause in issuing new oil and gas leases. Here is the total analysis on scope: "This Court does not favor nationwide injunctions unless absolutely necessary. However, it is necessary here because of the need for uniformity. Texas, 809 F.3d at 187–88. The Agency Defendants’ lease sales are located on public lands and in offshore waters across the nation. Uniformity is needed despite this Court’s reluctance to issue a nationwide injunction."

This is another example of why there is no meaningful limitation on universality, a judge's pearl-clutching "reluctance" not withstanding. All federal law applies "across the nation." If there is a need for uniformity, it is not limited to oil and gas leases, but applies to all challenges to all federal law. So all injunctions, at least as to enforcement of federal law, must be universal or there is no logical basis for making some universal and others not.

Opinions and Assignments

Two thoughts as the Court again issued one opinion (from November)

1) Since May 17, the Court has issued twelve opinions in seven "opinion days," issuing two or more opinions three of those days and one opinion on each of the remaining four. The Court has issued one opinion on eleven of its opinion days this Term. They have 21 argued cases left and three weeks in the Term, so likely six opinion days and an average of three opinions per day. And those that remain are among the most controversial and most important. Obviously the Court can issue opinions only when they are ready and cases with more and longer opinions take more time. But it is hard to avoid the sense that the Court is doing the equivalent of a "document dump"--dumping out major opinions in a flood, overwhelming those whose job it is to parse, understand, and critique the Court's work in the immediate political moment. This is distinct from the longer scholarly term. Scholars can write articles about these cases whenever and the timing of their issuance does not matter. But scholars also do and should provide immediate comment and critique and that is impossible when every day produces multiple major decisions.

2) Thursday's decision in Borden was a 4-1-4 split. Kagan wrote for Breyer, Sotomayor, and Gorsuch; Thomas concurred in the judgment; Kavanaugh dissented for the Chief, Alito, and Barrett. So a question: Who assigned this opinion, Breyer or Thomas? The practice is senior-most associate justice in the majority. Is it the majority for the judgment/outcome? So at conference, Thomas, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan, and Gorsuch vote to reverse, the assignment goes to Thomas, and if the writer (Kagan, in this case) loses a majority in the course of drafting, oh well? Or if at conference it is obvious that Thomas' views (apart from the result) are different than Breyer, et al., Breyer assigns? The former would seem to be more administrable because one never knows if the write can get a majority until she tries. The same issue arose with June Medical last Term--did the Chief assign the opinion because he was in the majority to reverse or did Ginsburg assign because the Chief's reasoning was always different? Does anyone know for sure?

3) Rick Hasen gets it and it amazes me that Justice Breyer does not appear to. It is one thing for Breyer to continue to believe the Court is not nakedly political. It is another thing to have watch Mitch McConnell for the past decade and not recognize what would happen.

JOTWELL: Malveaux on Spaulding on "actual" procedure

The new Courts Law essay comes from Suzette Malveaux (Colorado), reviewing Norman W. Spaulding, The Ideal and the Actual in Procedural Due Process, 48 Hastings Const. L.Q. 261 (2021) on how much of civil procedure occurs outside of federal court and the need for legal education to acknowledge and reflect that reality.

Speech and blame-shifting

There is a high burden to holding speakers liable for misconduct by others--absent some agreement or conspiracy, there must be intent that listeners engage in unlawful conduct and temporal imminence between the speech and the unlawful conduct. In part this is about freeing speakers to use rhetorical hyperbole and to be "vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp." It also frees speakers to speak without fearing liability because of the actions of the lowest-common-denominator listener. And it places the blame on those who engage in misconduct--where it belongs--and removes (or at least limits) the option of excusing action by blaming the speech one heard.

We saw this in efforts in the '80s and '90s to regulate pornography on the ground that it conveyed messagess about sex and women, signaled to viewers that it was ok to sexually assault women, and even planted ideas in viewers about whether and how to engage in sexual assault. The arguments against those efforts raised this LCD issue--we do not set legal rules for the LCD (even in those areas without the shadow of the First Amendment) and we should not give those who engage in unlawful actions an excuse for those actions. More recently, we saw this in litigation against activist DeRay Mckesson attempting to hold him liable for negligence arising from violent actions by an unknown person during an anti-police-violence demonstration that Mckesson organized.

I am reminded of this in stories about Capitol Insurrection defendants (here is the latest) attempting to excuse themselves from pre-trial confinement and (presumably) ultimate conviction by insisting they were duped or manipulated by the speech of Q-Anon, Donald Trump, NewsMax, and a host of other speakers and platforms spreading lies about the election and the opportunity to rise above "his ordinary life to an exalted status with an honorable goal." They were helpless against the onslaught of lies, but their eyes are now open, thus they no longer are a threat to the public and not bad people who did bad acts deserving of punishment.

"The devil made me do it" is too pat. Even if one accepts (as I do not) that Brandenburg's requirements are too high and that it should be easier to impose liability on speakers, I think we can agree that the person whose actions cause an injury is more culpable than the speaker and should not be able to use bad speech and bad speakers to excuse or reduce the consequences of his misdeeds.

On suing the wrong defendant

What happens if a constitutional plaintiff sues the wrong defendant and why does that happen? The answer is neither clear nor consistent, as two cases reveal.

Last week, the Northern District of Texas dismissed a challenge to a Lubbock ordinance prohibiting abortions in the city but providing no mechanism for municipal enforcement. Planned Parenthood sued the city, but the court recognized that the city is not responsible for enforcement of the law and does not control the private individuals who do enforce the law. The court therefore held that plaintiffs lacked standing. This decision presages the likely result when Planned Parenthood or another provider sues to challenge HR8.

Also last week, the Fifth Circuit ordered dismissal of a challenge to the rejection of online voter-registration applications using a photograph of a signed application form, under the "wet signature" requirement that applications have an actual ink signature. Acceptance or rejection of registration applications rests with country registrars. The Secretary of State had issued a press release reminding voters that online registration is not available, a press release that prompted several county registrars to change course and reject online applications. The Texas Democratic Party and others sued the Secretary. The court held that the Secretary had sovereign immunity, because she was not the responsible executive officer for a proper Ex Parte Young action.

The defect in both actions is the same--the plaintiff sued the wrong defendant, a person/entity not responsible for enforcing the challenge law and thus causing the challenged harm. It makes no sense to use distinct doctrines to get at the same idea. And a court could recast one as the other. The Fifth Circuit could have held that Planned Parenthood lacked standing to sue the Secretary, because the Secretary's press release did not cause the injury and an injunction against the Secretary would not remedy their harm. The Lubbock case could not be recast as sovereign immunity because a municipality is not a sovereign. But imagine when Planned Parenthood sues theTexas Commissioner of State Health Services. The court could say no standing, on the same grounds as in Lubbock. Or the court could follow Texas Democratic Party and say the Commissioner has sovereign immunity because he is not responsible for enforcing the heartbeat law and does not control those who do. Again, it is incoherent to fold the same idea into two doctrines.

Worse, to the extent the court wants to tie this to Ex Parte Young and sovereign immunity, it should be about the merits of the claim. The issue under § 1983 is not that states (and state officials sued in their official capacities) have sovereign immunity. The issue is that states (and state officials sued in their official capacities) are not "persons" for purposes of § 1983. So a state/state official should not claim sovereign immunity; it/he should claim that an element of § 1983--a person as defendant--is not satisfied. But that is a merits question that the court cannot resolved as a jurisdictional issue at the outset.

And all of this asks the § 1983 question--did the named defendant "subject or cause[] to be subjected" the plaintiff to a violation of her rights. If the defendant is not responsible for enforcing the challenged law, the answer is no. Which again reflects failure of an element of a § 1983 action, not competing jurisdictional ideas.

Mike Lindell sues Dominion

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell's new lawsuit against Dominion is a rerun and expansion of the suit the company filed last month, throwing in a civil RICO claim along with more of the same absurd factual allegations about election fraud and nonsense constitutional arguments.

Lindell's state action arguments fail for the same reasons as MyPillow's state action arguments--Dominion does not "administer" elections beyond providing infrastructure (any more than the handcuff manufacturer uses excessive force) and, if it did, it does not become a state actor for all purposes beyond running those elections.

This is garbage on the merits. But there are procedural issues attached to both actions that are worth considering.

Both sets of claims could have been brought as counterclaims in Dominion's defamation action in the District of D.C. At bottom, both actions allege that Dominion's lawsuit is part of a campaign to silence Lindell/MyPillow about election fraud; both suits allege that the Dominion suit is an abuse of process and a First Amendment violation.

One question is whether they would be compulsory; the answer is probably not, because the MyPillow/Lindell claims do not arise out of the same transaction or occurrence as Dominion's claims. This illustrates a common sequence: X does something to injure A, A files suit to remedy that injury, and X files a counterclaim alleging that those remedial efforts violate X's rights. Most courts say this is not STO because the real-world events giving rise to A's claims are based on whatever X did, while the event giving rise to X's counterclaims is A filing that lawsuit. There is a but-for relationship: But for X's actions, A would not have sought remedy; but for A seeking a remedy, X would not have a basis to sue. But that is not the necessary logical connection between the real-world events. Here, MyPillow/Lindell made false statements about Dominion, Dominion sought a remedy by suing, and MyPillow/Lindell argue that suit is tortious/violates the First Amemdment/violates RICO; that is the but-for relationship courts deem insufficient.

Nevertheless, they could have been brought as permissive counterclaims--there is diversity jurisdiction and/or some of the claims arise under federal law.

A second question is whether personal jurisdiction and venue is proper in Minnesota. The action that MyPillow and Lindell challenge is the filing of the lawsuit, which took place in D.C. The question is the same as one I considered about the Texas heartbeat law: Is suing a Minnesota citizen (and serving process on that Minnesota citizen in Minnesota) outside of Minnesota sufficient to establish personal jurisdiction? Again, this arises in the legal-malpractice and patent context and courts seem split on it.

A third question is whether the court should transfer venue to D.D.C. A court in Minnesota would be reluctant to adjudicate a lawsuit challenging the validity of a lawsuit in another court while that lawsuit is ongoing, as both turn on the same underlying facts (the truth of Lindell's original allegations against Dominion). The convenience of witnesses and evidence would seem to favor transfer--the validity of MyPillow/Lindell's claims depends on the validity of Dominion's defamation claim, which is occurring in D.C. The "situs" of the events in the counterclaim is the situs of the allegedly abusive defamation action, which is D.C. I would think both cases are better litigated in the same place, if not the same action, as the underlying lawsuit alleged to be violative.

Update: Commentators elsewhere point out a choice-of-law problem. Lindell points to Minnesota law on the abuse-of-process claim. But the prevailing view is that such claims are governed by the law of the place in which the allegedly abusive proceeding was filed. In other words, D.C. law. Which makes sense. A plaintiff who chooses to file a claim that is not abusive in one jurisdiction should not bear the risk that it might be abusive in a different jurisdiction. The choice-of-law issue also affects the transfer analysis, discussed above. What law applies is one of the public-interest factors that gets balanced--if D.C. law applies, that will favor the Minnesota court sending the case to D.C.

Further Update: The attorney from the firm Barns & Thornburg, who signed the complaint as local counsel, has been defenestrated. The firm says it did not know about the lawsuit.

Breyer's first (and last?) assignment

I am late on this, but thought I would mention: The Court decided Van Buren v. United States on Thursday, holding that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act did not reach a case in which the defendant lawfully accessed the computer for an improper purpose. The line-up was Barrett writing for Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh, with the Chief, Thomas, and Alito in dissent.

That unusual line-up makes this (according to all-things empirical SCOTUS Adam Feldman) the first time Breyer has assigned a majority opinion. And since many on the left hope Breyer retires at the end of the Term and that line-up of Justices is unlikely to recur, perhaps his last.

No standing when abortion law privately enforced

I mentioned the dry run for the standing/federal forum problems in challenging HB8 was a lawsuit over a Lubbock ordinance banning abortions within city limits and utilizing private enforcement.

The district court on Wednesday dismissed Planned Parenthood's challenge to the ordinance, finding PP lacked standing to sue the city. Because the city was not charged with enforcing the law and the city had no control over the private individuals who could bring private actions, there was neither causation nor redressability. The court (rightly) rejected the idea of a declaratory judgment or injunction against the non-responsible party as a way to persuade everyone else to comply. And the Fifth Circuit has precedent denying standing to plaintiffs in pre-enforcement challenges to laws that rely on private enforcement; apparently, Texas has attempted this in the past.

An alternative holding was Pullman abstention, as it is unclear whether a municipality has the power under state law to create private rights of action. The interesting piece there was over the source of the state-law ambiguity. The substantive provision challenged as violating the 14th Amendment--the ban on abortions--was not ambiguous; it was clear what the provision did. The ambiguity was over validity of the private enforcement mechanism. Both parties proceeded from the belief that any ambiguity must be "intertwined with" or directly related to the federal constitutional claim--that is, the ambiguity is in the substantive provision challenged on constitutional grounds. And in the mine run of cases it is--did the Railroad Commission have the power to enact the regulations or is the challenged law capable of a limiting construction. But the court did not find Pullman so limited. A state-law defect in any piece of the ordinance renders the entire statute invalid (or at least unenforceable), mooting the federal issue.

The case is on to the Fifth Circuit, which I expect to affirm. Meanwhile, we have a good sense of what will happen to pre-enforcement challenges to HB8.

More stupid lawsuits, ep. 81

Something called the "Job Creators Network" has sued MLB, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, the MLBPA, MLBPA Executive Director Tony Clar, and a bunch of John Does, claiming constitutional (equal protection and Dormant Commerce clause) and contract claims over MLB moving the All-Star Game from Atlanta to protest Georgia's voter-suppression laws. Nothing new here; more bad lawyering by bad lawyers using the courts to make political noise. Some thoughts on where this goes wrong.

MLB Under Color:

The § 1983 claim depends on MLB acting under color. The complaint tries to get there two ways, neither of which works.

The first, passing argument, is that MLB is not covered by the antitrust laws, a substantial benefit. Receipt of governmental benefits, disconnected from the challenged conduct, is not sufficient to place a private actor under color. This is not a case in which government gave a private actor a benefit on condition of the private actor doing something constitutionally violative. Quite the opposite. MLB's decision to move the game pissed off some congressional demagogues, who threatened to strip MLB of its antitrust exemption.

Moreover, if the antitrust exemption were sufficient, the alleged benefit comes from the federal government, not the state or local government. MLB therefore would be color of federal law and this would be a Bivens claim (in a new context, so not going anywhere), not a § 1983 claim.

The primary argument is that MLB teams act under color by virtue of playing in publicly owned or publicly financed stadiums; thus MLB, as an association of those teams, acts under color. Two problems. First, while I agree that playing in public stadiums places teams under color for some purposes--namely running those ballparks during games--it does not make them under color for all purposes. The Yankees are perhaps bound by the First Amendment in regulating fans' cheering speech during games at the publicly owned stadium; they are not bound by equal protection in firing a ticket-office employee. So if the teams are not under color for all purposes, MLB is not under cover for all purposes. Second, and more conclusive, a private association of state actors located in multiple states does not act under color because it is not tied to the law of any state. The NCAA does not act under color despite having actual state entities--public universities--from multiple states as members. It follows that MLB, which stands in the same position to teams as the NCAA does to schools, does not act under color.

Diversity Jurisdiction:

This is minor and not outcome-determinative, but the Civ Pro geek in me remains amazed at how often lawyers get diversity wrong.

According to the complaint, the following is true: The JCN is a not-for-profit corporation, incorporated in DC with its PPB in Texas.  MLB is an unincorporated association whose members are the 30 teams; it is a New York entity with its PPB in New York. The MLBPA is the players' union, a New York entity with its PPB in New York. Manfred is a New York citizen and Clark a New Jersey citizen. The complaint does not say so, but I believe the plaintiffs see this as  JCN(TX/DC) v. MLB (NY), MLBPA (NY), Manfred (NY), and Clark (NJ).

But an unincorporated association's state of creation or PPB is irrelevant; what matters is the citizenship of its members. The complaint acknowledges that MLB's members are the 30 teams, all of which are corporations or unincorporated association; if the latter, we need further level(s) of inquiry as to the members/partners of each team and perhaps the members/partners of each member. MLB therefore is not a New York citizen (or not solely a New York citizen); it is a citizen of any state in which a member/partner in any team ownership group is a citizen. We do not know every state, I imagine at least one team has at least one member who is a citizen of Texas or DC. Similarly, a union's state of creation or PPB is irrelevant; it is a citizen of every state in which a union member is a citizen. Again, I imagine at least one current MLB player is a citizen of DC or Texas.

This does not matter to the outcome of the case, because the complaint alleges (and there is) supplemental jurisdiction over the state claims. But I become skeptical of any complaint when the attorney gets the basics so wrong.

Standing

JCN purports to be an association of small businesses injured by MLB moving the game. It asserts associational standing on behalf of its members and organizational standing for the time and money it has spent fighting MLB's actions.

The problem is that the claim seeks primarily damages as a remedy, whereas associational standing works in injunctive actions. One element of the Hunt test for associational standing is that "neither the claim asserted nor the relief requested requires the participation of individual members in the lawsuit." Damage are, by definition, individualized to each plaintiff and thus require the participation of each member. The complaint attempts to get around that by asking the court to order that the defendants pay damages into a common fund, from which moneys are distributed to each plaintiff. But that is not how damages are calculated or awarded. I cannot think of a major constitutional case in which an association has been able to pursue damages on behalf of its members.

Remedies

The complaint asks for compensatory damages of at least $ 10 million and punitive damages of at least $ 1 billion, as well as an injunction ordering MLB to move the game back to Atlanta. That injunction is not happening. The punitive damages request is interesting because a punitive-damages ration exceeding 10:1 presumptively violates due process.

The least-stupid contract claim might be promissory estoppel, although that still fails. But even if it worked, the damages on a P/E claim are limited to what was spent in reliance on the promises, not what they would have made had the defendants followed through on their promise. Did businesses spend $ 10 million+ on the expectation of the game coming to Atlanta?

Whither the First Amendment

At its core, the claim here is that by engaging in the First Amendment activity of protesting Georgia election policy through its business decisions, MLB, et al. interfered with the power of Georgia to enact policy and the equal protection rights of those who support those policies. The Complaint spends some time defending Georgia's new laws, as if the propriety (in the plaintiff's views) of the laws lessens the First Amendment rights of those who protest. I do not believe the level of First Amendment protection for expressive activities turns on the "correctness" of the position asserted. That would have some broad implications.

Standing for (a challenge to) the national anthem or Standing up to zombie laws

There is a potential problem surrounding challenges to Texas' new law requiring the national anthem be played before all professional sporting events that receive state or local funds: While the law is a zombie, there may he problems challenging its validity in court.

No Texas-based professional sports team (there are 13) has indicated that it does not want to play the anthem. This kerfuffle began in February because the Mavericks did not play the anthem before pandemic games in empty arenas, but the team resumed playing it mid-season once everyone freaked out and once fans returned to the venue. That means no one will want to litigate the issue because no one will object to the legal requirement that they do something they intended to do.

Alternatively, if a team that did not intend to not play the anthem brought a lawsuit, it would be dismissed for lack of standing. The team could not show an intention to engage in a course of conduct arguably affected with a constitutional interest, but proscribed by a statute. The team does not suffer an injury-in-fact if it does not wish to engage in the conduct (not playing the anthem) regulated by the law.

Moreover, no team appears to have a choice, because every league requires its teams to play the anthem. That again means no injury because the team is not able to engage in the constitutionally protected conduct. It also means no traceability and no redressability. The obligation to play the anthem, even against the team's wishes, comes from the league, not the Texas law; the team would be obligated to play the anthem if the law did not exist and an injunction prohibiting enforcement of the law would not allow the team to play the anthem.

The opening may be that the law is not written as a regulation ("all teams must play the anthem"). It imposes a contractual obligation--all contracts under which teams would receive public funds must include a provision in which the team promises to play the anthem and a provision stating that failure to play the anthem constitutes a default, subjects the team to a penalty, and may bar the team from future public contracting. A team thus could establish standing based on the injury of having to make the promise to play the anthem as a condition of receiving public funds, even if it intends to (or must, per league rules) play the anthem. Having to make the contractual promise violates the First Amendment and injures the team, even if it intends to comply.

I hope the latter is the case. Otherwise, the state could enact performative zombie legislation aimed at a non-existent problem and immunize that legislation from challenge because there is no actual problem. Meanwhile, state officials would point to teams playing the anthem and say "see, our law worked and we are protecting your interests and the interests of America."

State action and free speech at Yankee Stadium

Two fans at Thursday's game at Yankee Stadium were ejected from Yankee Stadium after hanging this banner from the mezzanine, to a chorus of verbal and nonverbal counterspeech. The men were removed for the stadium, but not arrested and allowed to keep the sign.

Newsmax finds this an affront to the First Amendment. First Amendment Twitter (literally, an account run by the First Amendment itself) says "I protect you from the government, not from the Yankees." Much as I hate to agree with anything appearing on Newsmax, it is not as simple as the First Amendment and its responders make it sound.

At old Yankee Stadium (1923-2008, as renovated in 1976), this would be an obvious First Amendment case. The old Stadium was owned by New York City and leased to the Yankees for exclusive use on highly favorable terms. Plus, security was provided by off-duty New York police officers pursuant to a departmental program.

The NYCLU brought a lawsuit in 2009 on behalf of two fans who were ejected for refusing to stand in place when God Bless America was played during the Seventh-Inning Stretch. There were strong arguments that the Yankees--by virtue of their exclusive and beneficial use of publicly owned property and the involvement of off-duty officers in enforcing team policy--acted under color because of a "symbiotic relationship" with the city. A district court accepted it as to MLB in 1978 in holding that MLB violated the First Amendment by excluding female reporters from the locker room during the 1976 World Series  at the newly reopened Stadium. There also was an argument that the Yankees and the NYPD "jointly participated" in the alleged constitutional violation, because the Yankees used detailed officers to enforce their policies. The 2009 suit settled, with the Yankees taking a judgment for $ 10,001 and attorney's fees of $ 12,000.

The current stadium is owned by the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), a not-for-profit entity that is not a city agency. Its governing board has 27 members--7 appointed by the mayor at his discretion, 10 appointed by the mayor from nominees from the Borough Presidents and Speaker of the City Council, 10 appointed by the chair from a list approved by the mayor. The park cost about $ 2.3 billion, $ 1.1 in public money, and about $ 670 million from the team. I do not know the terms of the lease between the NYCEDC or the Yankees and whether they are as favorable as the terms of the lease with NYC on the old Stadium--although I cannot imagine the team gets less from this stadium than from the previous. I also do not know if security is provided through the NYPD program--pictures in the linked stories show people in uniform speaking with the banner holders.

There is a good argument that NYCEDC, given the manner in which its members are appointed, acts under color under Brentwood's entwinement test. But the Yankees, not NYCEDC, make and enforce these policies. The question is whether a private entity can have a symbiotic relationship with a public-private entity--do the Yankees act under color because they have a symbiotic relationship with an entity that itself acts under color because of its entwinement with the government? Alternatively, the plaintiffs might try to show symbiotic relationship from its exclusive use of a facility that was paid for largely with public funds, regardless of who holds title to the facility. A third option is carrying the joint-participation argument from the old Stadium, depending on whether the team has the same security arrangement with the NYPD.

If the bannermen can establish state action, do they have a First Amendment claim? Team policy requires that banners be "baseball-related, in good taste," not affixed to the stadium in any manner, and not obstruct anyone's view. The question is whether they were ejected for  displaying a banner in an improper manner or because of the content of the banner. I also would argue that the "baseball-related" limitation is invalid, given the broad scope of  the "cheering speech" fans engage in and (much as sports like to deny it) the historic link between social/political issues and sports. Fans can orally chant non-baseball-related stuff during the game, including that "Trump one." It should follow that a non-obstructive and non-affixed non-baseball related banner should be permissible.

Two last points. First, this should not be seen as the camel's nose for arguments that YouTube/Twitter/Facebook act under color; the connection to government is not bad. Second, I believe we can agree that Newsmax would be covering this story differently had the banner read "1/6 Commission Now" or "Trump Should Be Prosecuted."

Even First Amendment violations are bigger in Texas

Texas must have been jealous that Florida was getting all the attention for enacting laws that violate the First Amendment to an extraordinary degree. Especially after it failed  to pass its social-media bill, to the consternation of Lt. Governor Dan Patrick.

Fortunately, the legislature did find a way to trample the First Amendment. The House passed the Star Spangled Banner Act (previously passed by the Senate and sure to be signed by the governor, again in response to Paxton's demagoguery), requiring that all contracts for services between professional sports teams and state and local entities that provides public funds include a promise to play the national anthem at the start of every event. It takes effect on September 1, although if history is any guide, a lawsuit will be filed next week.

Give Texas credit. There are plausible visions of free speech that might accept government compelling social-media sites to accept all speakers or to limit their power to bar speakers, given their role as forums for expression. I do not share the vision, but it is plausible. There is no plausible universe, barring SCOTUS overruling three or four precedents, under which the state can condition funds on private entities performing mandatory patriotic rituals.

That did not take long

On Monday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the law purporting to regulate whether and how social-media sites decide who can use their sites. On Wednesday, I appeared on a local NPR program (first segment) discussing the law and predicting lawsuits, and quick TROs or preliminary injunctions, on July 1, the day the law takes effect. I missed it by 35 days--a lawsuit was filed Thursday in the Northern District of Florida by two trade associations representing most of the major social-media and tech companies, including Facebook and Twitter.

My favorite feature, besides the obvious First Amendment arguments--the bill includes a carve out for any company that operates a theme park, a clear sop to Disney. Count III is an equal protection claim, challenging that specific carve-out.

Preliminary injunction coming soon.

Further Updates on the procedure of the Texas fetal heartbeat law

A few points in update to my post on the Texas fetal heartbeat law and the procedural insanity it spawned, following some developments and some discussions on the Civ Pro Prof Listserv.

• My proposal (made not entirely seriously) that providers change domicile to create diversity and remove the enforcement action would not work. A listserv member pointed out that the district court upon removal would not dismiss for lack of standing, it would remand, putting the case back in state court. In addition, it would be too easy to avoid; Billy Bob could join a Texas-based doctor as defendant and eliminate complete diversity. I did not think that one all the way through.

• Another pre-enforcement option floated: Sue the state-court judge assigned to hear the private action. This raises the same Younger problems as suing Billy-Bob-as-state-actor, but not the state action problems. I do not believe this works for two reasons. First, a judge cannot be enjoined in the first instance in a § 1983 action; the plaintiffs must get a declaratory judgment first, then go back for a second round of litigation if the DJ is ineffective. Second, and more importantly, the judge is not the target of anti-suit litigation; the target is the litigant in that underlying litigation (such as the executive official charged with enforcing the law).  It would be highly unusual to enjoin a judge from allowing a case to go forward, although perhaps this is an extraordinary case.

• Some people seem a lot higher on the Lugar-based argument that Billy Bob acts under color. I hope not. I disagree with the Lugar line of cases and would not want it extended. And it would be deeply troubling if filing a lawsuit, without more, subjected someone to a § 1983 suit. Consider that MyPillow's lawsuit against Dominion, legal nonsense in current form, would look much different if this were the rule. I am more willing to go with the public-function argument, which is narrower and limited to a unique context in which a state delegates all enforcement to the private sector precisely to avoid pre-enforcement litigation. But I do not trust courts to find the nuance there.

• We have a test run for these arguments in a challenge to a Lubbock ordinance banning abortions within city limits and using private enforcement (although the complaint alleges some public-enforcement mechanisms, so it may be less clear than HB8). Planned Parenthood sued the city and the city moved to dismiss for lack of standing. Stay tuned.

• There is a separate question, which I am not competent to address, of whether Billy Bob will have standing to bring the private enforcement action under HB8. According to Charles "Rocky" Rhodes (South Texas), the expert on the Texas Constitution, Texas courts generally follow Article III standing doctrine, but are more accepting of standing when the legislature authorizes the suit.

• A wild proposal from a different emailer: What if a blue state created a cause of action against Billy Bob--allowing any person to sue for damages anyone who brings a claim under HB8? All sorts of extra-territoriality and personal-jurisdiction puzzles there.

• A different version: What if a blue state enacts a clawback statute, allowing anyone (or at least anyone within the blue state) held liable in a Texas HB8 suit to bring a claim in the blue state's courts to recover the amount paid in the Texas litigation. This raises a specific PJ question--is suing a New York corporation (knowing it is a NY corporation) in  a lawsuit that is tortious under New York law purposefully aiming actions at the forum for Walden/Calder purposes? (I believe there are legal malpractice actions that get at the same idea).

This also could raise issues about relationships among state judiciaries and whether the courts of one state can halt litigation in another. Countries enact clawback statutes designed to recover any judgment paid under the laws of another country (e.g., Japan allows a clawback action against U.S. antitrust plaintiffs). Federal courts are split on whether and why they can enjoin those proceedings to "protect or effectuate" their judgment in the underlying case. Could a Texas court, having issued a judgment for Billy Bob against Planned Parenthood, enjoin the NY clawback action?

Against the Well Pleaded Complaint Rule

A point I neglected to make in my post on the Texas fetal-heartbeat law: This illustrates the strongest criticism and biggest problem with the Well Pleaded Complaint Rule.

The argument against the rule is that the benefits of a federal forum--uniformity, respect for federal rights, and expertise in federal law--apply regardless of where and how a federal issue arises. A federal forum is as necessary for a federal defense or a counterclaim as for a claim. Just as The New York Times would have liked a federal forum against Alabama officials using state-law defamation as the functional equivalent of seditious libel against truthful reporting of government misconduct, so does Planned Parenthood need a federal forum against random Texans attempting to bankrupt them into practically depriving women of their opportunity to engage in constitutionally protected activity.

Preenforcement challenges to state laws are important not only because it allows a rights-holder to assert her rights without having to face legal jeopardy, but because they give the rights-holder access to a federal forum. Combining purely private enforcement with the WPC deprives Planned Parenthood of any federal forum (save the unlikely SCOTUS review) in these cases.

JOTWELL: Erbsen on Gluck & Burch on MDL

The new Courts Law essay comes from Allan Erbsen (Minnesota), reviewing Abbe R. Gluck & Elizabeth Chamblee Burch, MDL Revolution, 96 N.Y.U. L. Rev. ___ (forthcoming 2021).

Procedural morass of the Texas Fetal Heartbeat Law (Updated)

Texas Governor Greg Abbott yesterday signed SB 8, a "fetal heartbeat" law that bans abortions as early as six weeks. What makes this different than the spate of similar laws from red states is that the law is not publicly enforceable. Instead, it creates a cause of action for "any person" to bring a civil action against any person who performs or induces an abortion or who aides or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion, the latter covering paying, insuring, and reimbursing the costs of an abortion, as well as (I presume) publicizing the availability or option of abortion. Remedies include injunctions, statutory damages of not less than $ 10,000 per abortion, and attorney's fees.

This is a mess, although picking it apart will take work.

A

Josh Blackman is correct about two things.

First, the ordinary route to challenging abortion restrictions--Planned Parenthood or other doctors and providers of reproductive-health services brings a pre-enforcement § 1983/Ex Parte Young action against the governor, AG, Secretary of Health and Human Services, or other public official for a declaratory judgment and injunction prohibiting enforcement--is not available. Because no government officials are responsible for enforcing he law, there is no "responsible executive officer" to sue or to enjoin from enforcing the law. Courts may frame this a number of ways--lack of standing (because the officer does not enforce the law, the injury is not fairly traceable to the officer or redressable by an injunction), sovereign immunity (the elements of the EPY exception are not satisfied), or (my preferred way) that official is not violating the plaintiff's substantive rights. The legislature is immune from suit for enacting the law. And, in any event, the existence of the law (the thing for which the legislature is responsible) does not violate anyone's rights.

Second, the enforcement actions will stay in state court, because any federal defense that the law is invalid is not a basis for removal. One workaround on this would be for providers to reincorporate and/or change their principal places of business out of Texas. That would create diversity jurisdiction and allow for removal on that basis. And once the case is in federal court, the defendant should be able to have it dismissed for lack of standing. There could be fun games with the amount-in-controversy requirement. Attorney's fees are generally not included in calculating the amount in controversy, so that remedy is excluded from the calculation. Would a plaintiff limit the claim to recovering the statutory minimum and only for seven abortions to keep it under the amount? What is the "cost" of a prevented abortion procedure? Alternatively, would we see plaintiffs coming from outside Texas to bring these actions? "Oh, Planned Parenthood is incorporated in New York, let's find a New Yorker to bring this suit."

Alternatively, this is where § 1443 would come in handy, as it appears this law will deny defendants the ability to assert certain rights (see below). But that provision is limited to state laws that deny federal equal rights, not to laws denying non-equality constitutional rights such as due process.

B.

The law attempts to limit or deny defendants the right to assert the constitutional rights of women to challenge the validity of the underlying abortion fetal-heartbeat ban as an affirmative defense. This is framed as a limit on third-party standing and as a statutory provision codifying the requirements of the constitutional test. It also removes the affirmative defense if Roe or Casey is overruled, even after the challenged conduct.

This demonstrates the problem with using the language of third-party standing to describe constitutional challenges to laws regulating and criminalizing the conduct of the providers bringing these actions. It is not third-party standing but first-party standing, because the challenged law regulates the party to the action. These cases do not involve a law prohibiting conduct by 18-year-old men and a lawsuit brought by the bar owner injured by the loss of business. These cases involve laws prohibiting conduct by and imposing punishments on reproductive-health-services providers. Planned Parenthood is asserting first-person standing to raise its own rights not to be held liable or sanctioned under a constitutionally invalid law. True, the law is invalid because it violates someone else's constitutional rights. But the law still targets the party to the action, not the non-party rights-holder. This looks more like United States v. Bond, in which the Court held that a defendant can raise federalism and separation-of-powers defects in the law under which she is prosecuted, without viewing it as vicarious assertion of state interests.

I came up with the following analogy: A state wants to silence a critical newspaper. It enacts a statute prohibiting "mean and critical speech" and creates a cause of action to sue for damages and attorney's fees the companies that provide ink and paper to the newspaper that publishes mean-and-critical speech. I believe a court would allow the defendants to argue that the law is invalid because it prohibits protected speech, even if the speech regulated (thus the constitutional right violated) belongs to the newspaper and not the ink or paper companies. The companies' conduct is regulated by the law and thus they must be able to defend themselves.

Is the civil action under SB8 materially different from that case? In both, someone is being made liable under an invalid law. Maybe the difference is (or should be) between pre-enforcement and enforcement actions. We might limit who can bring pre-enforcement challenges and what rights can be asserted in pre-enforcement challenges. But those limitations should not apply when the invalid law is enforced to impose liability on someone; that defending party must be able to raise the full range of defects in the law to avoid liability and damages.

To the extent the statute purports to limit defendants' ability to challenge the invalidity of the underlying ban, does that violate procedural due process?

Again, this gets litigated in Texas state court. Will state courts faithfully apply SCOTUS precedent to this zombie law and dismiss the enforcement actions? The assumption is that they will not, contra the assumption of parity that guides the study of fed courts. And SCOTUS could review the underlying defenses that the law is invalid. Would SCOTUS touch this? Would a majority object to the temerity of either the state legislature for enacting this or for the state courts in disregarding current precedent?

C.

An Erie problem, because this disaster has everything. Section 4 provides that an attorney or organization who unsuccessfully challenges the validity of any state law regulating or restricting abortion or funding of abortion or represents a plaintiff in an unsuccessful challenge, in state or federal court, is liable for the defendant's attorney's fees.

It is pretty obvious this cannot apply in federal court. An Act of Congress controls the question of attorney's fees in constitutional actions in federal court--§ 1988, which has been interpreted to make fees virtually automatic for prevailing plaintiffs but recoverable by prevailing defendants only if the case was frivolous and even then relatively rarely. So there is no room for the state law, which directly conflicts with § 1988, to operate.

Section 4 circumvents problem by providing a distinct cause of action to recover attorney's fees within three years of the end of the prior litigation. So a plaintiff who prevails in federal court could bring a new lawsuit in state court seeking fees. Does that create a converse-Erie problem?

D

This is a good, if unfortunate, lesson that most people in law and politics do not take procedural arguments seriously, but use them as cover for substantive preferences. The conservative legal project for 30+ years has been limiting standing and causes of action in environmental- and consumer-protection cases, including using Article III to defeat legislative efforts to enable private enforcement. I guess those limitations do not apply in the areas some people care about.

E (Update)

This is becoming a Fed Courts exam.

A reader proposes that the private state-court litigation under invalid state law equals state action under Shelley v. Kramer and New York Times v. Sullivan. So perhaps Planned Parenthood can bring a § 1983 action against the Texas plaintiff once the lawsuit is filed (but perhaps before service), seeking to enjoin the private action because the underlying law is invalid. I do not think it works, but it is worth exploring.

I describe this situation as state action without a state actor (or a person acting under color of law). There is state action in the creation of state law (statutory or common law) and its enforcement in state courts, thus the Constitution plays a role as a defense in the private litigation. The Shelleys could argue that equal protection means they must prevail in the state-court action to divest them of title to the property, The Times could argue that the First Amendment means it must prevail in the state-court defamation action, and Planned Parenthood could argue that due process protects it from liability for performing or facilitating abortions.

But it requires another step to say that Kramer (the neighboring property owner), Sullivan, or Texas anti-choice advocate Billy Bob Smith is a state actor (or acts under color of state law) and thus is subject to a § 1983 suit for filing those civil actions.  That generally does not happen in these state tort cases with constitutional undertones. And rightly so. A private person who avails himself of state law and state processes, even if constitutionally invalid, does not become a state actor and should not become a state actor. Think of the major constitutional decisions involving state tort or other causes of action; all arose as defenses in the civil action rather than by suing the would-be state plaintiff in federal court. Lugar v. Edmondson Oil represents the exception, where the Court found state action because the use of state law (ex parte pre-judgment attachment) required coordination with the clerk of court and the sheriff, so it was more than availing oneself of state law. (Lugar does the state-action work in the series of post-Janus actions to claw back previously paid agency fees). I happen to believe Lugar is wrong. If we are stuck with it, however, it should not extend to the situation of filing a lawsuit under presumptively valid state law.

On the other hand, let me try a different state-action argument that might work. Texas enacted a new law banning some conduct, then delegated to private individuals lacking any connection to the conduct at issue the exclusive power to enforce that law while declaiming all governmental enforcement. And it declaimed government enforcement specifically to prevent pre-enforcement challenges. Perhaps enforcing state law is a "traditional-and-exclusive government function," delegation of which creates a state actor. This is not to say that every private attorney general acts under color. But perhaps it is different if the government turns all enforcement to the private AG. That argument is at least non-frivolous.

If Planned Parenthood could get past that state-action problem, another hurdle awaits--Younger. In the ordinary case, Planned Parenthood would bring a pre-enforcement action in federal court against the responsible executive official to enjoin enforcement. But it has a time window in which to act--if the state initiated an action to enforce the abortion ban, Younger prohibits Planned Parenthood from running to federal court to enjoin that pending enforcement action. Under HB8, however, Planned Parenthood cannot sue the private plaintiff because it has no idea who the private plaintiff will be--it could be anyone. So it must await for Billy Bob to identify himself by filing the lawsuit, at which point Younger arguably kicks in.

But Younger is uncertain in three respects. First, under Sprint, Younger bars federal actions in deference to three classes of state litigation--criminal cases, civil enforcement actions brought by the state, and ordinary civil litigation involving court orders that are uniquely central to the state court's authority (e.g., contempt and pre-judgment attachment). Billy Bob's lawsuit does not fall within any of those three, unless the court extends the second category to include civil enforcement by a private attorney general. Second, if Younger applies to this type of case, it would test Younger's "flagrantly and patently violative" exception, because it is hard to imagine a law more flagrantly and patently violative under Roe/Casey than a ban on abortions at six weeks, before many women know they are pregnant. Finally and alternatively, this might fit the bad-faith exception, because the plaintiff could not win a valid (under current judicial precedent) judgment. A district court held earlier this year that the exception applied to a new action to sanction Masterpiece Cakeshop for refusing to back a cake for a trans woman following the SCOTUS decision. It is even more obvious that a fetal-heartbeat law is invalid under Roe/Casey and that any judgment would be invalid.

Fed Courts Day at SCOTUS

Monday was the seemingly annual day in which the Court drops multiple Fed Courts decisions.

• CIC Servs. v. IRS held unanimously that an action challenging the validity of a reporting requirement, even one backed by a tax penalty for noncompliance, is not barred by the Anti Injunction Act. The Court identified three features that define whether the purpose of an action is to restrain assessment or collection of a tax: Whether the challenged rule imposes costs separate from any tax, how attenuated the tax payment is from the challenged rule, and whether noncompliance is enforced through non-tax mechanisms, such as criminal penalties. Justice Sotomayor concurred to suggest the answer might be different in a challenge brought by a taxpayer as opposed to a tax adviser (the plaintiff in this case), because those three features, especially costs, play differently for the taxpayer. Justice Kavanaugh concurred to seemingly broaden the Court's opinion as allowing all challenges to regulations backed by tax penalties ("Do X or pay a tax penalty) even if the result of a successful suit would preclude assessment or collection of a tax. Would his reading mean that the ACA individual mandate was not barred by the AIA not because it was not a tax, but because it was a regulation backed by a tax penalty?

• B.P. v. Mayor of Baltimore held 8-1 that when a case is removed in part under § 1442 (federal-officer removal) and the district court remands, all bases for removal may be raised on appeal, even those bases for removal that could not have been appealed independently. Section 1447(d) says "order remaning," which includes all possible bases and grounds for the order remanding. Justice Sotomayor dissented and I think has the better of the argument; the text is not as clear as the majority suggests and the potential mischief--borderline frivolous federal-officer or civil rights removal followed by appeal of other grounds not otherwise appealable--would undermine the purposes of § 1447(d) in limiting appeals of remand orders.

• Edwards v. Vannoy held 6-3 that Ramos v. Louisiana (holding last term that the Sixth Amendment required unanimous juries) did not apply retroactively to habeas actions. The Court held that new procedural rules cannot apply on habeas, eliminating Teague's exception for "watershed" rules of criminal procedure because no rule had ever been held to be such a watershed. Justice Thomas (joined by Justice Gorsuch) concurred to argue that the case should have been resolved under AEDPA--the state court's decision upholding Edwards' conviction could not have been unreasonable prior to the Court changing the law in Ramos. Gorsuch (joined by Thomas) concurred to provide a disquisition on the history and evolution of habeas to argue that modern habeas review of state court judgments does not reflect the original purposes of habeas corpus and does not authorize federal courts to reopen final state court judgments. Justice Kagan (joined by Justices Breyer and Sotomayor) dissented.

Apart from the details, the case included one interest exchange. Justice Kavanaugh wrote the majority here and supported the judgment in Ramos (he joined Gorsuch's plurality in part and concurring in part), while Kagan dissented in Ramos and here. Kavanaugh objected to Kagan criticizing the Court was failing to live up to the promise of Ramos and "impugn[ing]" the Court for shortchanging defendants. Kavanaugh argued that defendants are better off under his (and the Court's) view--some defendants (those whose cases are pending and whose convictions have not completed direct review) benefit, even if not all do. That is better off than if Kagan's view in Ramos had prevailed. Kagan responded that the force of stare decisis shifted--it supported her position in Ramos, but Ramos having been decided as it was, stare decis "was on its side" and the Court must "take the decision on its own terms, and give it all the consequence it deserves." Given recent stories about Kagan's efforts to reach out to Kavanaugh, Kavanaugh seemed put off by Kagan "rhetoric" and what he perceived as an implication of bad faith.

You can't handle a real trial

I have read many discussions about Lt. Cmdr Galloway (the Demi Moore character) in A Few Good Men being an awful lawyer. One commentator went so far as to label her the real villain of the film. She is bad, although she did introduce the concept of strenuously objecting, which I use in flagging students' unnecessary use of adverbs.

Like in any legal movie, the courtroom histrionics are nonsense and a lot of what Kaffee did was inappropriate in its place. But it lays out facts and evidence that could have been worked into a realistic trial. So something I have thought about for years: Did Kaffee need Jessup to confess to ordering the Code Red? Or could he have created reasonable doubt in a real case?

Prosecution's evidence:

    • Dawson and Downey attacked Santiago, stuffed a rag in his mouth, and Santiago died.

    • The doctor testified that the rag was poisoned, largely based on the results of the autopsy and the cause of death.

    • Kendrick testified that he ordered the men in the unit not to touch Santiago, however much they might want to.

    • Santiago was scheduled to be transferred the next morning, so Kendrick and Jessup had not reason to "train" him through a Code Red.

    • Dawson had motive--Santiago threatened to report Dawson for a fence-line shooting. It is not clear what Downey's motive was--following Dawson, I guess.

Defense evidence:

    • Dawson had previously ignored orders and helped a Marine who was being denied food as a Code Red; his performance ratings and the speed of his promotions dropped.

    • Code Reds (Codes Red?) were a thing at Gitmo, it was in the air, and everyone knew about them.

    • Dawson protected Santiago. The men in the unit knew that and would not have given him a Code Red because Dawson would not have allowed it.

    • Santiago had not packed and had not told family that he was being transferred (although he was supposedly being transferred not discharged, so I am not sure whom he was supposed to tell).

    • Men follow orders or people die.

    • We did not see it, but there almost certainly would have been other positive character evidence on the defendants, who were, before this, "poster-child marines."

    • The doctor's testimony changed--initially inconclusive, then certain about the presence of poison.

Kaffee's closing: Much of what Kaffee does in examining witnesses, especially Jessup, would properly have occurred during closing and could have been effective then.

    • Inconsistency between the supposed transfer and the supposed order not to perform a Code Red, given that men follow orders. Both were designed for Santiago's protection, but there is no reason to issue both. Combined with Santiago not having packed and being asleep four hours before his flight, it seems unlikely that he was being transferred. So the plan was to tell the men not to touch Santiago.

    • Dawson had gotten in trouble for ignoring orders, so he would not have ignored Kendrick's order not to touch Santiago. Especially given his history of protecting weaker marines, including Santiago. Dawson would not disobey an order anymore and he would not attack a weaker marine. For him to do this, he must have been ordered.

Reasonable doubt?

Fed Courts Puzzle

After Twitter banned Donald Trump and others, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a Civil Investigative Demand (CID), a demand from the Consumer Protection Division seeking documents relevant to an investigation into possible violations of state consumer-protection law. Twitter filed suit in the Northern District of California, seeking a declaratory judgment and injunction stopping investigation or action to enforce the demand, alleging that investigation was begun to retaliate against Twitter for content decisions Texas did not like.

The Northern District of California dismissed the action as not ripe. The demand is not self-executing and requires the state to initiate an enforcement action in state court; absent a court order, Twitter can ignore the demand without penalty. The initiation of a retaliatory investigation, without more, is not sufficient adverse action to make a retaliation claim. The court distinguished precedent involving employment investigations, which carry the threat of termination or other adverse employment action, and subpoenas and other investigatory documents that carried sanctions without court involvement. Here, Texas would have to file an action in state court and any consequences on Twitter come from a state court finding that demand is valid. Because "to date,no action has been taken to enforce the CID," Twitter's action is premature.

But the effect will be to lock Twitter out of federal court on its First Amendment claim. Once the AG initiates the enforcement proceeding, Twitter would have an opportunity to raise its First Amendment arguments.  That the means the federal court might have to abstain under Younger--this would be a civil enforcement proceeding akin to a criminal proceeding, in which the state as party seeks enforce its laws, the proceeding would be pending, and Twitter would have an adequate opportunity to raise its federal constitutional arguments. Alternatively, should the state court find the CID valid, Twitter would be complaining about a state court judgment, triggering Rooker-Feldman. At a minimum, issue preclusion would prevent federal relitigation of the First Amendment questions raised and decided in the state enforcement proceeding. Twitter's only option is to appeal the enforcement action through the Texas system and hope SCOTUS would take the case on review. In the meantime, it can do nothing about the threat over its head and the chilling effect it is intended to create.

Update: An emailer shares my skepticism, wondering why this case should not be Steffel v. Thompson--a declaratory judgment on the First Amendment defense to any enforcement action. He suggests this was an error in framing. The court described Twitter's sought remedies, quoting the complaint, as an injunction prohibiting "any action to enforce the CID or to further the unlawful investigation" and a declaratory judgment that the "First Amendment bars . .. Paxton's January 13, 2021 CID and the investigation." By framing the DJ around the investigation rather than enforcement--whether on her own or based on the complaint--the court pulled the case out of Steffel. The result is to keep Twitter out of federal court, except through SCOTUS review.

Anti-Vaxxers on Facebook and Nazis in Skokie

Yale law professor (and Tiger Dad) Jed Rubenfeld has signed on as counsel for Children's Health Defense, a non-profit anti-vaxx organization founded by Robert Kennedy, Jr., in a lawsuit alleging Facebook and Politifact violated the First Amendment in labeling certain content as false and in preventing people from donating to CHD through the site. CHD argues that Facebook acted under color because the CDC gave Facebook the standards and guidelines it used in its labeling, creating a close nexus through government coercion or encouragement of private constitutionally violative conduct. The more obnoxious coverage emphasizes that Rubenfeld undertook this representation during a two-year suspension at Yale, creating complementary memes of "disgraced law prof further disgraces himself" and "this is what happens when law professors try to practice law."

But I cannot see a meaningful difference between Rubenfeld pursuing free-speech claims for anti-vaxxers on Facebook and the ACLU pursuing free-speech claims for Nazis in Skokie. I (and most of the people using the case as a chance to zing Rubenfeld) agree with the legal arguments in the latter and disagree with the legal arguments in the former. But that cannot be the difference in evaluating the professional, ethical, or moral propriety of the decision to serve as counsel and to pursue this litigation.

Nor is the answer that the ACLU raised obviously and indisputably valid arguments about core free speech principles while "everything about [CHD's] case is dumb, and the fact that the disgraced and suspended Rubenfeld is using it to further his nutty legal theories is just the icing on the nonsense cake." Skokie was not the simple case in 1977 that it appears in 2021. Under the law at the time, fighting words had not been narrowed to face-to-face encounters, a state could punish group libel, and police could arrest outrageous speakers to prevent a hostile audience from engaging in violence. Newer case law (e.g., Brandenburg and Sullivan) called those cases into question, but the landscape was more open than it is today. Someone certainly labeled the ACLU's case on behalf of the Nazis "dumb." Similarly, arguments can be made that "Facebook is a private actor and so can control what gets said and how" is not the sole plausible conclusion. No precedent controls the situation in any direction. And while I believe best application of existing state-action doctrine leads to the conclusion that Facebook is not a state actor and I expect courts to agree, it is not so obvious.

This story implicates a broader controversy over how vigorous attorneys should be in pursuing civil litigation on behalf of plaintiffs. At what point can/should/must an attorney decline to take on a case or to make arguments in support of the client's position and how does the attorney identify that line? The general view is that a criminal defense lawyer is sui generis; the imperative to do whatever it takes is greater when defending an individual against the overweaning power of the carceral state, even when a "bad person" benefits. Even if not the same, however, Skokie has been celebrated as the principled lawyer using civil litigation to pursue general ideals for all, albeit for the immediate benefit of the ultimate bad or unappealing person. This was obviously and especially true of the First Amendment, but it was not so limited; RBG established principles of gender equality by vindicating the rights of men. Moreover, the analogy between civil and criminal works when both are about protecting rights against the power of the state. The state seeking to incarcerate is different in degree but not kind of the state prohibiting rights-holders from exercising their rights.

What has changed, such that Rubenfeld is the target of criticism and mockery? Or put differently, would we see the same criticism and mockery if Rubenfeld had joined the Skokie case. One possibility is that some might be be less accepting of the Skokie narrative, less accepting of lawyers using general principles used on behalf of bad people. Otherwise, are anti-vaxxers "worse" than Nazis? Some segment believes the ACLU was wrong to represent the Nazis in Skokie, so Rubenfeld is equally wrong to represent anti-vaxxers. A version of this positionarose during the post-election litigation, where firms and lawyers (including some large firms with reputations at stake) were criticized for pushing legally and factually absurd cases on behalf of plaintiffs wronged by state governments (and Dominion, of course), distinguishing those doing whatever is necessary on behalf of criminal defendants.

Twiqbal and accrual

The Eighth Circuit held last week that a claim for retaliation accrues at the time of the retaliatory actions and comments suggesting retaliatory motive. (H/T: Volokh Conspiracy's Short Circuit). The case arises from the 1989 kidnapping and murder of an 11-year-old in central Minnesota, a national-obsession case I had never heard of; I plowed through the In the Dark podcast on the case over two bike rides this weekend.

Daniel Rassier and his mother, Rita, owned the farm at the end of the driveway near which the abduction occurred; the killer turned around and parked in that driveway for a time on the night of the attack. Beginning around 2004, Daniel publicly criticized the new county sheriff, who had begun focusing on Daniel as a possible suspect. In 2009, the sheriff sent the victim's mother into a conversation with Daniel wearing a wire, hoping to catch him saying something incriminating; Daniel instead criticized the sheriff and the investigation. Upon hearing those critical comments on the wire, the sheriff obtained a search warrant for the Rassier home and publicly named Daniel a "person of interest" (a meaningless term that should be retired). During the search, the sheriff allegedly twice told Daniel, "this is what happens when you talk." The sheriff repeated these statements to the podcast reporter, suggesting there are ways a person should not speak about an investigation. Daniel obviously became a social pariah after these accusations, including losing his business giving private music lessons.

The killer, Danny Heinrich, was identified in 2016 and confessed, pleading guilty to one count of possession of child pornography (the podcast discusses the reasons for that). The sheriff never apologized or acknowledged the mistake in suspecting Daniel. This plays into the podcast's theme that the police screwed the case up (they identified the perpetrator within a few days, then failed to put together the necessary information) and that this county sheriff's office has a notorious track record for failing to solve major violent crimes.

Daniel and Rita sued in 2017, less than a year after Heinrich's confession but seven years after the search (the limitations period is six years). Daniel argued that the claim did not accrue until 2016, when two things happened: 1) Heinrich confessed, thus establishing Daniel's innocence of the crime; and 2) Daniel read an unsealed copy of the sheriff's warrant affidavit, which he said was the first time he had written proof of retaliatory motive. (The podcast reports on a the transcript of the warrant hearing, which shows law enforcement making stuff up). The court rejected the argument, holding that 1) there is no requirement of certain innocence before the claim can accrue and 2) the sheriff's oral statements gave Daniel notice and a basis to believe there was a retaliatory motive, starting the clock on the claim.

Had Daniel sued prior to 2016, he would have alleged the sheriff's statements, along with facts describing the search, his criticism of the investigation, the various investigative failures, and his innocence of the crime. The court states that those facts gave Daniel notice of a viable claim. The court implies that this would have been sufficient to state a claim and that he could have found the affidavit in discovery and used it to prove his case.

But would those facts, without the allegations based on the affidavit or the sheriff's later stattements, have survived a 12(b)(6) under Twiqbal? The court might have held that the sheriff's isolated statements are ambiguous or capable of alternative understandings, rendering retaliation a possible-but-not-plausible conclusion from the facts. Other allegations of retaliatory motive, without the evidence of the affidavit or other specific facts showing intent, might have been rejected as conclusory. So might the allegations that Daniel was innocent of the kidnapping/murder. Thinking of what Daniel could have known between 2010 and 2016, it is unlikely he had enough to survive dismissal.

This case places the problem in some relief. A claim is said to accrue when the injured person "can file suit and obtain relief." For a retaliation claim, that is the time of the retaliatory act combined with some basis to believe there was a retaliatory motive. But Twiqbal disconnects filing suit and obtaining relief. The information sufficient for the claim to accrue and to compel suit might not, when reduced to writing, be sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss. That seems problematic.

Tawny Kitaen, sports, and speech

Actress Tawny Kitaen, who came to fame as Tom Hanks' love interest in Bachelor Party and in the video for Whitesnake's Here I Go Again, died on Friday. Kitaen was married to former MLB pitcher Chuck Finley, with whom she had two daughters. The marriage ended in 2002, following an April domestic-vi0lence incident.

So a quick note on Kitaen's connection to sport and speech. In April 2002, Finley, pitching for Cleveland, was warming up prior to a game against the White Sox in Chicago. Fans gathered near the bullpen to taunt him. The White Sox DJ then played Here I Go as Finley went to the mound. Following the game (in which Finley got rocked), the Sox fired the DJ. Unsurprisingly, I agree with this take: The Sox over-reacted, because "taking musical digs at an opponent is a well-established part of sports tradition." And while targeting someone's personal life is questionable, the personal has long combined with the athletic in the realm of cheering speech. The difference is it coming from the host team as opposed to fans.

Judge Newsom goes Full Fletcher

The Eleventh Circuit held Thursday that a hearing-impaired individual has standing to bring ADA and Rehabilitation Act claims for damages against a municipality for failing to make videos on its web site accessible to the hearing impaired. (H/T: Longtime reader Asher Steinberg).

The notable part is the 50+-page concurrence from Judge Newsom, who goes Full William Fletcher to argue that there is no distinct Article III standing inquiry distinct from the merits, using examples from Fletcher's foundational article. What gets called standing is about the existence of a cause of action and the violation of a legal right and remedy, going to the merits of the claim and not to the court's jurisdiction. Congress' power to create causes of action is not unlimited. But the limitation comes not from Article III, but Article II and the power of the President to execute the laws. The requirement of a particularized injury is a way to distinguish public from private rights or actions to vindicate the rights of the individual--which Congress can enable--from actions, such as criminal prosecutions, to vindicate the rights of the general public--which reside with the executive and cannot be delegated to private individuals. Newsom acknowledges that his approach does not eliminate difficult line-drawing and hard questions to divide public from private rights. But there is value in focusing on Article II rather than Article and thus "seeking answers in the right place." And, I would add, value to analyzing it as a matter of merits rather than jurisdiction.

I could not have said this better myself. And I have tried in this space, a lot.

End of (snow) days

I called this one.

Because everyone in my family was teaching and/or learning remotely for much of this academic year, we spent six months (mid-August to mid-February) in the Philly suburbs. We experienced the snowiest Philly winter in about a decade, with three major (6"+) snowstorms and 2-3 snow days. While taking a family walk in the snow, I wondered whether the year of remote learning signaled the end of the snow day--schools would shift to remote learning on those days in which weather prevents students and teachers from getting to the building.

New York City announced the elimination of snow days for the 2021-22 academic year, continuing the practice of the past year for many school districts. It made sense this year, when many schools were doing an in-person/remote hybrid; if half the school would have been remote, it made sense to make everyone remote for the day. But presuming schools are back to normal and everyone is in-person next year, this represents a major change, shifting the entire school from in-person to remote for the day. The arguments for this are clear--eliminating snow days gives the district control over the academic calendar and avoids the risk of the school year running (in the northeast) into late June. The arguments against it sound in nostalgia for the snow days of our youth.

In Miami, we do not have snow days, we have hurricane days. Eliminating these off-days is not an option, because a storm severe enough to close schools likely knocked out power and internet for teachers and students. On the other hand, kids cannot go out and play in the hurricane or its aftermath, so no one misses anything fun.

Oral arguments

With the exams about over, I come to my favorite days of the semester today and tomorrow: Oral Arguments in my Fed Courts and Civil Rights classes. Each student argues one case before SCOTUS and serves as Justice on one case as a final project; the cases are recent decisions from lower courts. Ordinarily, the class spends the day in the courtroom watching one another and we bring in lunch and coffee; this semester will be via Zoom, hopefully for the last time.

This is a fun exercise. It gives students another chance to do oral advocacy, which many do not do after 1L legal writing. It allows me to engage the students to see how well they can talk about material, outside the formalities of a paper. The list of this year's cases is after the jump (case numbers are made up, usually representing key dates in my family).

Federal Courts:

New Hampshire v. Massachusetts, No. 21-0526

      Motion for Leave to File Bill of Complaint on Original Jurisdiction

      Issue Presented: Whether this Court must and should exercise original jurisdiction over an action by one state challenging another state’s collection of income tax from non-residents.

 Shands Teaching Hosp. & Clinic v. Morgan, No. 21-0520

      Issues Presented: Whether a federal district court has subject matter jurisdiction over action for a declaratory judgment that plaintiff has no obligation to comply with state law to disclose medical records because state law is preempted by federal law.

Waterfront Comm’n of New York Harbor v. Murphy, No. 21-1028

      Issue Presented: Whether an interstate compact agency can sue a state official under the doctrine of Ex Parte Young to prevent that official from implementing a state law that would be preempted by the terms of a congressionally approved interstate compact.

Nike, Inc. v. Fleet Feet, Inc., No. 21-1227

      Issues Presented:

      (1) Whether appeal of preliminary injunction becomes moot where the injunction restrains defendant from designating “confusingly similar” marks, where the time period in which the defendant wanted to use the challenged mark has passed.

      (2) Whether, if the appeal is moot, vacatur of a preliminary injunction is proper under United States v. Munsingwear, Inc.

 

Civil Rights:

Campbell v. Reisch, No. 21-0526

      Issue Presented: Whether an elected state representative acts under color of law in blocking an individual from accessing the social-media account she uses to publicize performance and accomplishments as a state representative.

Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, No. 21-1028 (Diamond v. Pennsylvania State Education Ass’n, No. 21-1227 (Consolidated))

      Issues Presented:

        Whether public-employee labor unions acted under color of state law in collecting fair-share fees from non-union members pursuant to state law mandating such fees, so as to be subject to suit for damages under § 1983 for violating the First Amendment.

        Whether § 1983 recognizes a good-faith immunity allowing public-employee labor unions that act under color of state law in collecting fair-share fees from non-union members pursuant to state laws mandating such fees to avoid liability for damages for violating the First Amendment.

Fowler v. Irish, No. 21-0520 (Robinson v. Webster County, No. 21-0303 (Consolidated))

      Issue Presented: Whether state officials can be liable under substantive due process for injuries caused by non-governmental third persons, contrary to this Court’s decision in DeShaney, under a “state-created danger” theory.

Nance v. Commissioner, No. 21-0423

      Issue Presented: Whether death-row inmate’s claim that state’s lethal-injection protocol would cause undue suffering in violation of the Eighth Amendment and seeking to require the state to employ an alternative method of execution is cognizable under § 1983.

Polk County v. J.K.J. No. 21-0515

      Issue Presented: Whether a municipality can be liable under Monell for sexual assaults of detainees committed by a corrections officer, where county policy prohibited sexual contact between guards and inmates and the county knew of sexual assaults by other officers but not the officer involved.

Mack v. Yost, No. 21-1216

      Issue Presented: Whether federal inmate can seek damages for First Amendment retaliation under Bivens against prison officials who fired him from his paid prison job for complaining about anti-Muslim harassment by correctional officers.

Thomas v. Freed, No. 21-0428

      Issue Presented: Whether § 1983 action challenging state’s failure to return excess proceeds from foreclosure sale of real property is barred by the Tax Injunction Act, § 1341.

Limiting rules, no-hitters, and perfect games

John Means of the Orioles pitched a historic no-hitter against the Mariners on Wednesday. He faced the minimum 27 batters, did not walk a batter, and not hit a batter. But it was not a perfect game. In the third inning, Means struck out Sam Haggerty swinging at a curve ball that bounced through the catcher's legs and rolled to the backstop, allowing Haggerty to reach first. (It was ruled a wild pitch, although it should have been a passed ball; the pitch was not in the dirt and the catcher should have dropped down to block the ball). Haggerty was caught stealing, then Means retired the final 19 batters.

The uncaught third-strike rule is the cousin to the infield fly rule. As general principle, a person cannot be put out unless the last person to have the ball on the play catches and holds the ball. The catcher must hold onto strike three to record the out (although it counts as a strikeout, he must tag batter or throw him out at first), just as an infielder must catch a fly ball to record the out. The IFR reflects an exception to this general principle, where the defense gains an overwhelming advantage, thus an overwhelming incentive, by intentionally not catching the ball to complete the out. The rules establish a similar exception for third strikes--if a force is in effect on at least one base, such that the defense could get multiple outs if the catcher intentionally does not catch strike three, the batter is out even if the catcher does not catch it.

Retired U.S. District Judge Andrew Guilford, the sharpest critic of the IFR, would dump the third-strike rule along with the IFR. If a pitcher throws a great pitch that fools the batter (check the video in the link above; Means threw a vicious curve), he should be rewarded with an out, regardless of what his catcher does. I do not agree, but it is a consistent position.

Can kids be assholes? And other thoughts on Mahanoy arguments

Having listened and taken one pass through the argument in Mahanoy Area Sch. Dist. v. B.L., taking as a starting point that I am terrible at predictions from arguments.

• Can kids be assholes to one another? Everyone was worried that without Tinker, a school could not regulate bullying when it occurs outside of school. B.L.'s attorney tried to leave the school some power so long as it comports with non-Tinker First Amendment standards (bullying, defined similar to harassment, as a new category of unprotected speech). But Justice Sotomayor pointed out that a lot of problematic out-of-school behavior would be cruel but not bullying under any definition that would comport with the First Amendment. The presumption is that there cannot be a realm in which students might emotionally hurt each other with impunity other than from their parents, so the school must have the power to fill that vacuum. But impulse to kindness aside, must this be so and why? Maybe the answer is that emotional hurt, regardless of when or where it happens, is so traumatic for kids that someone has to do something. And the school should do it because, regardless of where it occurs, the bullying is part of school because school is life for kids.

• But that is what makes the school's and government's positions problematic. Giving the school the power to regulate anything that "targets" the school and a school topic is all-consuming, because school is life for kids. There is little a student says or does--or has said or done about her--that is not about school in some way and that will not find its way back to school and to her life as a student.

• Lots of questions about whether students in extra-curricular activities can be regulated more closely, even out of school, than ordinary students. The Third Circuit said no and the school did not appeal, so the issue was not before the Court. I do not see why it should matter, as suspension from an activity because of protected speech is as much an infringement as suspension from school, just as a $ 5 ticket for protected speech is as much an infringement as an arrest. (The difference in severity would go to the damages available in a subsequent § 1983 action, not to whether a violation occurred).  Everyone focused on sports (and cheer) at issue in this case, presuming they (supposedly) uniquely need unity, discipline, respect, cohesion, and camaraderie. And there is this idea of being a "school ambassador." Do student counsel, physics club, and band require those things? Does the band director or the play director warrant the same respect as the cheer coach? "Athlete exceptionalism" was the camel's nose for random drug-testing, which then expanded to all "competitive" extracurricular activities.

B.L.'s lawyer also argued that the school could set conditions on athlete (and other extracurricular participants'?) speech with clear policies in advance. But he did not specify whether the First Amendment imposes any limits on those policies--whether the school can compel students to agree to surrender all off-campus speech rights as a condition of participation. That would be unfortunate.

• Lisa Blatt, the school's counsel, worked hard to argue that Tinker does not create a heckler's veto and that religious and political speech cannot be proscribed under Tinker. Offense (by the school or by some subset of students) is not sufficient to create a disruption, absent a broader factual context such as student walkouts, an impending battle between the Jets and the Sharks, or an effort to use fighting words to "terrorize" a new Black student. This is important, because "disruption" could (and I think has in many cases) been based on listener anger.

• Off the free-speech topic: Justice Alito asked Blatt whether a student could be punished for misgendering a non-conforming student. She said the school could insist on "accommodations," such as requiring students to use the person's name but not a pronoun. I think we know where that is going.

AALS Art Law Section Program on Painting Constitutional Law

The AALS Art Law Section will host Painting Constitutional Law—An Author Discussion, 2-3:30 p.m. EDT, Tuesday, April 27.

The panel will discuss Painting Constitutional Law: Xavier Cortada’s Images of Constitutional Rights, the book co-edited by my FIU colleague M.C. Mirow and me. Speakers will include Cortada, whose painting series inspired the book; Corinna Lain (Richmond); Linda McClain (B.U.); and Laura Underkuffler (Cornell).

Register here.

JOTWELL: Coleman on Gadson on stolen plausibility

The new Courts Law essay comes from Brooke Coleman (Seattle) reviewing Marcus Alexander Gadson, Stolen Plausibility, __ Geo. L.J. ___ (forthcoming 2021), on courts preventing plaintiffs from relying on facts from other cases and other investigations as a way to satisfy Twiqbal.

Protest and the 202_ Tokyo Olympics

The International Olympic Committee on Wednesday reaffirmed its stance against protests by athletes at the Tokyo Olympics, whenever they happen (they are scheduled to begin July 23, but I have my doubts). On Thursday, international advocacy groups pledged to provide legal support for any athletes who are sanctioned for protest activity. The USOPC had announced in December that it would not sanction any athletes who broke the IOC regulations. I wrote about the rule change, which was announced before the world shut down last year. I had not known that USOPC inducted Tommie Smith and John Carlos into its Hall of Fame in 2019.

Bad state action arguments (Updated)

MyPillow, facing a billion-dollar defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems over Mike Lindell's post-election nuttery, has sued Dominion (note: It is a new action, not a counterclaim--not sure why). It asserts claims for violations of the First Amendment and due process.

How? Here is ¶ 89: "Defendants, at all times relevant hereto, were performing and fulfilling a traditional and exclusive state and governmental function of administering public elections, pursuant to state statutes, ordinances, regulations, customs, rules and policies established thereunder, and as such, were acting under color of state law."

Administering elections qualifies as a traditional-and-exclusive public function, when the government delegates or turns control over the election machinery to a private entity, such as the Democratic Party in Jim Crow Texas. It does not apply to government contractors who support the government in performing those traditional-and-exclusive government functions. So this argument is silly and doomed to fail. Although I suppose it at least has a better doctrinal base compared with those arguing that Twitter, YouTube, et al. act under color because managing a "speech forum" is a public function or because § 230 immunity makes them the government or because saying they are committed to free expression makes it the government.

Update: Fleshing this out a bit following an email exchange with a reader.

    First, none of this matters to the present action. Even if Dominion acted under color in performing election-related functions, it does not act under color for all purposes. The allegation in this action is that Dominion violated the First Amendment by publicly criticizing and suing MyPillow for defamation. Dominion is not under color in doing that, because it is not wielding any authority derived from government. The claim is not saved by the argument that Dominion was responding to MyPillow criticisms of Dominion's allegedly under-color election conduct. The chain of causation does not extend so far. Devin Nunes--an actual government official--does not act under color when he sues cows for criticizing how he performs his (under color of law) government functions.

    Second, Dominion's supposed malfeasance was all over the place in the post-election litigation and various Kraken and Kraken-adjacent complaints were loaded with allegations of how Dominion voting machines helped throw the election to Biden. No one thought to include Dominion in any of those suits on this theory?

    My presumption in these arguments is that Dominion's role is limited to selling/renting the machines to the government, installing them, training government officials on them, and providing technical support where necessary; Dominion is not more actively involved in running the collection and counting of votes. This makes Dominion like the company that provides tasers or handcuffs for police--even if those devices somehow contribute to the constitutional injury, providing them does not alone create state action. A greater level of joint cooperation with government officials might change the conclusion, creating joint participation and a nexus because government enables the private misconduct. (The example from a reader is police hiring private security to provide additional crowd control at a public event). The complaint does not provide any facts showing a greater level of engagement by Dominion.

Academic Feeder Judges

Academic Feeder Judges, my study of where legal academics clerked, has been published at Judicature.

Panel: The Law and Politics of the 2020 Election and its Aftermath

FIU College of Law will host a panel, The Law and Politics of the 2020 Election and its Aftermath, from 1-2:15 EDT on Tuesday, April 13 (tomorrow). Panelists are Carissa Byrne Hessick (UNC and PrawfsBlawg), Ellen Katz (Michigan), Brian Kalt (Michigan State), Genevieve Lakier (Chicago), and Steve Vladeck (Texas and formerly PrawfsBlawg). It should be a great discussion.

Click here to join us.

Universality in Tandon v. Newsom

Christopher Sprigman started a Twitter thread contemplating what happens if California disregards or circumvents the order in Tandon v. Newsom. A different thread derides the suggestion as "stupid." I do not believe California will attempt this, so the issue is academic. But we can illustrate how litigation operates by parsing this specific case.

We need to break down what state officials might attempt to do and against whom.

Tandon was a lawsuit by ten plaintiffs, individually. Newsom and other California officials are enjoined from enforcing COVID restrictions against these ten individuals and the religious groups they head. Any attempt to enforce against them would constitute disregard for a court order. It could be punishable by contempt, sanctionable by fines and, in the extreme, jail. And yes, Biden would be obligated to send in US Marshals, if not the 101st Airborne, to enforce the court's order against state officials as to these ten plaintiffs.

No court order prohibits Newsom and other California officials from attempting to enforce the regulations against anyone other than those ten individuals. State officials therefore would not be in contempt of any court order in attempting to do so. Nor would they be "disobeying" the Supreme Court, because the Supreme Court did not order them to refrain from doing anything as to anyone other than those ten plaintiffs. And Biden and the US Marshals would play no role, because there is no court order to enforce.

What would happen if Newsom or other state officials attempted or threatened to attempt this?

    • The new targets would sue in federal court, asking for an injunction to protect them.* They should get it, although a lot depends on how much precedential force these per curiam shadow-docket "decisions" or "orders," even with five justices behind them, carry. They may carry force less as precedent than as a looking threat--lower courts are on notice that failure to enjoin will be summarily reversed by SCOTUS, which now sees it as its job to superintend litigation without awaiting finality or full briefing. Either way, it seems likely that the district court would issue that injunction prohibiting enforcement against these new targets. The new targets also could obtain attorney's fees as prevailing parties, which might be the strongest drag on pursuing this strategy. This new judgment and injunction protects these individuals against enforcement by these state officials. Were officials to continue enforcement efforts as to these plaintiffs, they would be disobeying a court order; subject to contempt, fines, or other sanctions; and subject to action by US Marshals.

[*] Alternatively, they might join as plaintiffs in the current action and ask the court to expand the injunction. There are some close Rule 20 joinder issues there.

    • The new targets also might ask for damages from the attempt or threat to enforce, even if only nominal. The question then is whether the defendants would lose qualified immunity for their actions. Is it now clearly established that COVID regulations treating religious practice less favorably than any other activity (comparable or not) violates the First Amendment? Again, it depends on how courts treat these orders as precedent that clearly establishe a right.

Would Justices Thomas and Gorsuch, both on record as rejecting application of injunctions beyond the names plaintiffs to that case, disagree with any of this?

This is the first time we have seen this idea from the left; previous talk of "resistance" efforts came from the right, in response to Brown and Obergefell. And it does no good to distinguish this case as involving a "rule that religious people get to ignore the law." Any framing--here, in Brown, or in Obergefell--reduces to disagreement with the substance of a decision and an attempt to convert disagreement into a suggestion of illegitimacy.

Thoughts on Caron Nazario lawsuit

Here is the complaint. A few thoughts.

• The complaint is uniquely specific and precise about the facts because the plaintiff obtained the officers' body-camera footage and footage from his cellphone. He could review (and cite to) evidence in the pleading. No need to rely on boilerplate, to plead on "information and belief," or to plead in general terms. No Twiqbal problems here.

• The First Amendment claim is interesting. He alleges that the officers threatened to retaliate against him by pursuing charges if he exercised his First Amendment petition rights and complained, then filed false reports in furtherance of that effort. First Amendment retaliation is tough--the plaintiff must prove the officers did not have probable cause to arrest for anything, which typically  is tough to show. But the camera footage helped in framing that claim.

• The complaint does not try to do too much. Nazario sues only the officers for the immediate violations. He does not try to weave a failure-to-blank theory to establish municipal liability based on patterns of past misconduct by these or other officers. The complaint also does not spend pages weaving this action into the broader national problem of police abuse. It does not employ outraged rhetoric to appeal to the reader's emotion. Such information would not be legally important to this case (except in furtherance of the failure-to-train theory that the plaintiff does not pursue). But it would be politically important in placing this case in a bigger picture and drawing public interest and attention to the case. Beth Thornburg coined the term "pleading as press release" to describe using the complaint to speak to, and litigate one's position in, the public . Whatever the merits of doing that, it is interesting that this plaintiff and his lawyer did not try it. Maybe the video, which is all over the internet, performs the work that the language of the complaint ordinarily would perform--news stories can describe the video rather than quoting outraged rhetoric in the pleading.

Speech is not money (Update)

People are having fun ridiculing ridiculous Republicans. After years of insisting that the First Amendment guarantees corporations the right to spend money supporting (mostly Republican) candidates and causes have now decided that corporations and corporate executives must "stay out of politics" when their speech consists not of writing checks to GOP candidates but of boycotting certain locations and business partners or otherwise speaking as an entity on matters of public concern. In fairness, maybe Republicans such as Mitch McConnell never believed that corporations should be able to "speak," only that they should be able to spend money (by giving it to Republicans)--and speech is not money.

Of course, the left is not doing much better. Many are urging, supporting, and celebrating large institutions (Coca-Cola, Delta, MLB) wielding their economic power to protest, and try to influence, government decisions and public policy. But if this is legitimate and laudable behavior from these companies, most of the left criticisms of Citizens United and cases--"corporations are not people," "corporations don't have First Amendment rights"--evaporate. Believing that MLB can and should move the All-Star Game from Atlanta in response to voter-restriction laws depends on believing that MLB has the right, as an entity, to take a position on matters of public concern.

Neither side can have it both ways. Either corporations enjoy First Amendment rights to engage, through expenditure (or non-expenditure) of funds, in public debate or they do not. It does not vary by context. It does not vary by the political position they take. And it does not vary by the type of corporation. If Delta can (and should) take corporate action that furthers principles you like, then Delta may take corporate action that furthers principles you do not like.  If Coca Cola can spend money to support the election of candidates you support, then Coca Cola can spend money, time, effort on positions you do not support. You can make your expressive decisions accordingly.But your response cannot be that it does not have the right to do it or that it should "stay out of" the arena.

There is a liberal argument that would oppose expansive campaign spending  but support current corporate efforts in Georgia and elsewhere. But it is not the Citizens United bumper sticker that most liberals favor. It argues that big-money contributions and expenditures should not be allowed to influence public officials and elections, that elections are "bounded institutions" in which unique limitations should apply in ways they do not in the larger public debate. This is an argument about wealth and controlling its influence in the electoral system, not corporate status. That is, the problem is not corporate spending but all spending, by people and corporations alike. But that is not the argument that most liberals make about campaign finance.

Update: Wow. I was being sarcastic about Republicans being ok with corporations spending money but not speaking. But that appears to be Mitch McConnell's position: "Stay out of politics because it's not what you're designed for," but "I'm not talking about political contributions," only "taking a position on a highly incendiary issue." Don't speak, just spend money. Don't take express positions, just give money to me and people I like (presumably to gain influence). I can only assume that issues and candidates with which McConnell agrees are never "highly incendiary." This would be laughable if not so par for the course.

I do not expect intellectual honesty or consistency from McConnell. But I would like to hear a theory of why contributions are ok but express positions are not. To blanket contributions (and expenditures) in the First Amendment, there must be an expressive quality to those expenditures. And there is no logical way to say a corporation has First Amendment right and can speak, but that it must limit its expression to the form of campaign contributions but no other expression in other forms (especially because giving money so someone can spend it is less expressive than other forms of corporate communication involving true speech).

Further Update: An alternative title to this post (seen on Twitter and elsewhere) might be "Money is speech, but speech is not speech."

SCOTUS vacates Knight Foundation, Thomas has things to say

SCOTUS GVRed Biden v. Knight Foundation (begins on p.9) with instructions to dismiss as moot under Munsingwear. No surprise, as mootness was always inevitable because Trump would someday leave office, known to happen once he lost the election, and factual once Twitter banned him. Whether plaintiffs can recover attorney's fees remains. As do questions of the effect on qualified immunity.

We also have some explanation for why this took so long--Justice Thomas wrote a lengthy (solo) concurrence, emphasizing that the real power over internet spaces is private rather than governmental and offering arguments for why internet platforms might be regulable as common carriers or places of public accommodation. He also suggests that lower courts have misconstrued § 230 to give immunity to "bad-faith removal of third-party content," whatever that means. And he carries water for the grievance of Trump being banned from Twitter (and his 89 million followers), demonstrating the "stark" disparity between Twitter's control and Trump's control.

Thomas recognizes that the First Amendment limits government power to control speech in a private space that it rents or uses.

Whether governmental use of private space implicates the First Amendment often depends on the government’s control over that space. For example, a government agency that leases a conference room in a hotel to hold a public hearing about a proposed regulation cannot kick participants out of the hotel simply because they express concerns about the new regulation. See Southeastern Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad, 420 U. S. 546, 547, 555 (1975). But government officials who informally gather with constituents in a hotel bar can ask the hotel to remove a pesky patron who elbows into the gathering to loudly voice his views. The difference is that the government controls the space in the first scenario, the hotel, in the latter.

I think this misses the mark in two respects. First, Trump could have asked the "pesky patrons"--assuming they were violating Twitter's terms of service--be removed by Twitter. Second, a government official's Twitter feed is more than an informal gathering with constituents and Thomas' framing minimizes the communicative power of Twitter. It seems more akin to a Town Hall meeting or a speech--the official speaks to the public and the public can hear and respond. If that is not a full-on public hearing on a proposed regulation (which limits the effect to legislative bodies), it is more than people who happen to be public officials hanging out in a bar.

Return of Kitty Genovese?

The video-recorded attack on an (unidentified) elderly Asian-American woman in New York is striking two themes: the increase in bias-motivated violence against Asian-Americans and the apathy of the men inside the building who watched the attack on the sidewalk, then closed the door when the attack was over and the woman was lying on the ground. The staff members have been suspended pending an investigation in cooperation with the SEIU; the union says that their current information is that the workers called for help and urged people not to rush to judgment. Meanwhile, video and stills of the attacker have been released and calls are out for information about the identity of the assailant.

The story brings to mind Kitty Genovese, whose 1964 murder wrapped into an inaccurate narrative of bystander apathy that remains 57 years later, even as recent accounts have shown that narrative to be false. That this new (apparent?) apathy was caught on video makes the narrative more powerful and potentially stickier. It is different in two respects. First, it does not allow a complete-apathy narrative, as witnesses say someone on the street (not captured on video) chased the assailant, who pulled a knife before escaping. Second, the apathy is bound up with the anti-Asian narrative. So this is not public apathy, but racist apathy directed at a vulnerable population.

Tenth Circuit adds to the pantheon of awful qualified-immunity decisions

From the Tenth Circuit, in a case arising from Denver police seizure of a tablet computer from a bystander who filmed police using force against another person. This involves less egregious facts than six hours in a feces-laden cell or stealing coins while executing a warrant.  But it demonstrates how far afield the analysis has gone.

Denver police department told officers in their training that the First Amendment protected the right to record. The officers disregarded express departmental guidelines--that is, they knew their conduct violated the First Amendment as they had been instructed on it. The court said that was irrelevant because: 1) the officers' subjective knowledge of their wrongdoing is irrelevant under Harlow's objective standard and 2) only judicial opinions can clearly establish rights because the Constitution means what the courts say, regardless of any training by the executive department.

This seems wrong for several reasons.

First, the standard that SCOTUS has floated in recent cases is that qualified immunity protects "all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law." What does that second point mean if it does not allow immunity to be lost when the officer knows the law and still violates it. Second, SCOTUS has looked at departmental guidance in the qualified immunity analysis. In Wilson v. Layne, the Court pointed to US Marshal regulations allowing media ride-alongs and said they could establish the lawfulness of conduct, so long as they were not obviously unconstitutional; it should follow that guidance can establish what is not lawful. In Hope v. Pelzer, the fact use of the hitching post was prohibited by Alabama Bureau of Prisons guidelines helped clearly establish the right, along with not-quite-on-point precedent. And the Third Circuit in Fields v. City of Philadelphia considered the role of departmental policy in clearly establishing a right, although the court there said the regs did not clearly establish the constitutional right because it was not clear that the regs were grounded in the First Amendment as opposed to good policy. Nevertheless, the parties and the court worked on the understanding that departmental policy is part of the analysis. At the same time, of course, the existence of department policy instructing officers allows the city to avoid municipal liability because they had trained their officers on a highly protective version of the First Amendment.

Second, the sort of naked judicial supremacy is unwarranted and unjustified. Yes, executive interpretation will yield to judicial understanding once matters hit court. But the court leaves no room for departmentalist interpretation and training.

Third, the court pulled an interesting sleight-of-hand in looking at law from other circuits circa 2014 (when these events occurred). Four circuits had recognized some First Amendment protection for recording of police pre-2014. A "robust consensus" of non-SCOTUS authority can clearly establish. But the court said none of those courts had found the right clearly established; the court was more persuaded by the non-finding of the right as clearly established (although some cases were not for damages and thus immunity was not in issue) than by the conclusion that the First Amendment was violated. And one of the cases had a dissent (Judge Posner dissented in the Seventh Circuit case), suggesting a disagreement among judges that precludes a right being clearly established.

Fourth, the court bypassed the merits. Why? Because everyone in the case agrees that the First Amendment right to record exists and was violated here. And the constitutional question is best resolved in an adversarial posture featuring powerful arguments on both sides. So not only are these officers are off the hook, this case does not put the next officer on the hook for the same misconduct. And the court may have offered officials a wonderful new strategy in § 1983 cases: Concede the merits, prompting the court to skip ruling on the merits and allowing the officers to prevail because the right is not clearly established for lack of necessary judicial precedent. Of course, the court will never provide that precedent. And if formal government policy cannot clearly establish a right, litigation concessions certainly cannot do so.

A depressing piece of work. I am curious to see if it survives en banc review. Or if this will be the case that prompts reconsideration of this mess.

Trying and failing to keep standing and merits distinct

The Eighth Circuit offers the latest example, in a First Amendment challenge by vegan food producers and advocates to a Missouri law prohibiting misrepresentations of products as "meat" when not derived from animals.

The majority held the plaintiff had standing but had not shown a likelihood of success on the merits entitling it to a preliminary injunction, while the dissent argued that the action should have been dismissed for lack of standing. But everything turned on the same issue--whether the plaintiffs' proposed conduct violated the law and whether they were likely to have the law enforced against them, given that they did not "misrepresent" their plant-based products as being "meat." The majority said that standing is analyzed under Susan B. Anthony List, which requires a showing that the statute "arguably" reaches the plaintiff's conduct and there exists a "credible" threat of enforcement. But SBA "does no work" beyond standing; the merits of the claim (and the first prong of your injunction analysis) asks whether the plaintiffs' conduct was "likely to be seen" as violating the statute. On the other hand, the dissent took those same facts as not establishing standing.

The majority cited circuit precedent acknowledging that standing "tracks" merits and is "closely bound up" with whether the plaintiff is entitled to relief. But the court insists they are not "coextensive" and must not be "conflate[d]." But if the concepts turn on the same fact, they are doing more than tracking one another. If two judges look at the same fact and one uses it to find the absence of a cause of action and one uses it to find a lack of standing, they begin to sound coextensive. Which raises the question of why courts bother--why spend so much time on standing only to use the same fact to find a failure on the merits.

Court finds personal jurisdiction in Ford

SCOTUS decided Ford on Thursday, with all Justices agreeing that jurisdiction was proper. Kagan wrote for five (Chief, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kavanaugh); Alito concurred in the judgment; Gorsuch, joined by Thomas, concurred in the judgment. My SCOTUSBlog analysis is here.Kagan's opinion makes for a good teaching case, with a nice overview and summary of the doctrine (I am going back and forth about whether to use this instead of WW--I have a week to decide). On the relatedness question, Kagan concludes that a claim can "arise out of" the defendant's minimum contacts or it can "relate to" the defendant's minimum contacts; the former suggests causation, while the latter can looks for "an affiliation between the forum and the underlying controversy, principally, [an] activity or occurrence that takes place in the forum State and is therefore subject to the State’s regulation." Relate to contemplates relationships lacking that causal showing. This is where Alito jumped off. Arise out of and relate to mean the same thing and both require some causation, which was present here. Gorusch and Thomas question the entire International Shoe framework, without identifying what might replace it.
The case leaves many unanswered questions.

What is the status of the reasonableness factors that are supposed to be the third step in the analysis? The Court has not mentioned or relied on them in any recent case. But they should control the result in the local-company hypos in FN 4 of Kagan's opinion (about a retiree wood-carver in Maine) and in Breyer's Nicastro concurrence (about Kenyan coffee producers); the defendant had contacts and the contacts gav rise, but it would be unreasonable to drag these small defendants to distant forums. Kagan alludes to considerations such as fairness  to the defendant and notice to the defendant and the competing interests of the forum state and other states in adjudicating, but appears to bury them in the first two prongs, rather than leaving them as a third step.

What else would satisfy relate to but not arise under? Some courts or judges have argued that relate to allows a longer causal chain, while arise under looks for  a transactional connection. For example, in Clemens v. McNamee (Roger Clemens' defamation suit against the former trainer who narced him out to the Mitchell Commission), the dissent argued that McNamee had contacts with Texas through his training activities in Texas (he traveled there 30+ times) and that those contacts "related to" Clemens' defamation claim because the Texas-based training put McNamee in a position to know about Clemens' PED use. Brennan made a similar move in his Helicol dissent--all the contracts and preliminaries for the relationship with Helicol were negotiated and entered into Texas, contacts that made the deal, and thus the accident, possible. Would the same majority endorse those views?

There has been some interesting discussion on the Civ Pro Profs List of what must be "related" for the second prong. Is it a relationship between the defendant's contacts and the claim and the forum? Or between the plaintiff's claim and the forum? Or some combination of the two.

Playing baseball on Shabbat

In an early draft of my article on Jewish players and Yom Kippur, I included a discussion of "why Yom Kippur," among all other parts of the Hebrew calendar. In particular Shabbat, which, Armin Rosen argued in the essay that started me down this path, is more sacred than either of the High Holy Days. I considered what might happen if a player would not play on Shabbat--at a minimum, it raises practical difficulties for a non-pitcher to have to know he must miss 36 games (22 % of the games) before the season even begins. At the same time, I think a team could and would accommodate that player--especially a star--to its financial benefit. (I pulled this section for length, although I may try to do something with it as a stand-alone piece).

A number of publications and people are telling the story of Elie Kligman. Kligman is a high-school senior from Las Vegas, pitcher and power-hitting infielder who is transitioning to catching; he is ranked as the 14th-best high school player in the state. He also is Shomer and has never played on Friday nights or Saturdays; most leagues and tournaments have accommodated him, at the urging of his lawyer/agent father. Kligman is talking about playing big-time college baseball and hopes to make the Majors. And he is already talking about not playing on Shabbat if he gets there. Part of the reason he is switching positions is that catchers often get at least one day off each week because of the physical toll; his day off could be Shabbat.

Before getting too excited about the next "Mickey Mantle bred on blintzes and gefilte fish" (as was written about 1970s slugger Mike "Super Jew" Epstein), I want to know more about just how good he is. Who is recruiting him and how good a prospect is he? The story says there are a "handful" of college coaches interested in him, but will not say who or what level. A scout says he could make an "impact" for a Power-5 conference team in a year or two. And a statement such as this--"Based on talent and desire, Kligman is good enough to realistically entertain his dream of playing Major League Baseball, or at least top level college ball"--means nothing. Top-level college baseball is roughly equivalent to high-A minors, a long way from The Show.

Like every other Jewish baseball fan, I want this story to be true and I hope Kligman makes it and 5-10 years from now I can write about his team switching their Friday home games to 2:15 starts. But at the moment, the story about his MLB prospects is, at best, incomplete.

Story published just in time for Shabbat.

Qualified immunity, inconsistency, and level of generality

A practical problem with qualified immunity is its inconsistency. This is especially true with respect to the level of generality at which a right is defined, which often determines whether a right is clearly established--the broader the level of generality, the more likely that precedent, created on different facts, can clearly establish. Case in point: The District of New Mexico holding that it was clearly established in 2019 or 2020 that a local elected official violates the First Amendment by blocking people from their private Facebook page.

At first glance, this seems impossible. SCOTUS has never addressed this, nor has the Tenth Circuit (which includes New Mexico). The two appellate decisions holding that the First Amendment prevents government officials from blocking people on social media--the Second Circuit in Knight Foundation and the Fourth Circuit  in Davison--came in 2019. That is not a "robust consensus" of lower-court of precedent. But the court did not look for such factual specificity. Rather, the rights at issue were to be free from viewpoint discrimination in online spaces used as "metaphysical" public fora and from viewpoint-based retaliation in those public forums.

This stands in sharp contrast to the typical approach. Even outside the absurd cases ("precedent saying it is unlawful to steal drugs during a search does not clearly establish that it is unlawful to steal coins during a search"), courts look for at least some factual similarity beyond general free-speech principles. An official blocking a user from her private page, while leaving that person otherwise free to say whatever he wants wherever he wants, is a far cry from a state banning individuals from all social media.

Perhaps this is how things should be. If qualified immunity must remain, perhaps courts should think about rights more broadly and in a less fact-bound way. But it is out of step with current immunity doctrine, including from the Tenth Circuit, that "viewpoint discrimination" is not a sufficiently specific right.

SCOTUS March Madness

SCOTUSBlog is running a 16-person bracket for greatest Supreme Court Justice. Marshall, Holmes, Warren, and Scalia are the top seeds. Frankfurter is 15th seed, which seem bizarre. Here is the methodology. Based on results so far, it looks like recency bias and liberal bias may prevail, with a touch of groundbreaking bias thrown in. As of this moment, the only close match-ups are the 5-12 between Brennan and Ginsburg and the 6-11 between Black and Rehnquist.

Vote early, vote often (Round 1 closes this Sunday).

Civ Pro: No Coke, Pepsi

Two fun things in recent Civ Pro classes.

First, I taught Scott v. Harris today. For the first time, not one student took the position that the video might support the plaintiff and show that the use of force was unreasonable. Maybe everyone who took that position had her camera and did not feel like doing hand-raise. But I was surprised.

Second,we Discovery last week, with a group argument over Coca-Bottling v. Coca-Cola, a dispute over discoverability of the formula for Coca Cola (what is now Classic) and the discovery and sanctions order coming from that dispute. But then, because I could not resist and believe I should impose my pop-culture preferences on them as much as the other way around:

Testing the Ainge Curse

BYU has a school policy against playing games on Sunday, grounded in LDS religious obligations. In 2003, the NCAA Basketball Tournament Selection Committee put BYU in a bracket space that required it to play a potential second-weekend game on a Sunday. The NCAA pledged not to let that happen again. But it did it again this year. BYU is the 6th seed in the East Region, which is scheduled to play on Sunday/Tuesday; the Midwest Region is scheduled to play on Saturday/Monday. If BYU reaches the Sweet Sixteen, the East and Midwest will switch schedules. Because fans will not be present and teams are bubbled and not traveling, the switch is administratively easy and can remain contingent until we see the results of the first weekend. (H/T: Josh Blackman)

Last year, Yeshiva University's men's team made the D-III tournament. It played at 2 p.m. Friday, with the host school knowing the team had to leave the gym by 5 for a 5:46 Shabbat, then at 8:45 p.m. Saturday.

Zombie revivals

Michael Dorf writes about a new Arkansas law that bans all abortions except to save the life of the woman in the case of a medical emergency. Dorf wonders why Arkansas (or any other state) does this rather than attempting to enforce an existing law. He argues it is partly political--current legislators and the current governor want the political trophy of such a law, as opposed to give the attorney general the glory of new enforcement. There also is the problem that Arkansas or another state may be under an injunction not to enforce the existing laws, so the new law is necessary to create a new enforcement opportunity. Alternatively, the AG would have to ask the district court to lift the injunction, which may be difficult when done in anticipation of SCOTUS overruling precedent.

Some good thoughts here that I want to incorporate into my Zombie Laws paper.

Twiqbal and voting

I  doubt I am in the first person to draw this connection, but here goes:

The political group(s) pushing to restrict voting rights are the same group(s) who seek to restrict access to courts and to civil justice. The real reasons for restricting access are the same--the people they want to win will not win if there is broad access (Republican candidates v. governments/businesses/persons who engage in certain types of wrongdoing). But they cannot acknowledge those real reasons. So they create evidence-free arguments equating expanded access with abuse of the system (massive voter fraud  producing an incorrect, inaccurate winner v. frivolous litigation with burdensome and disproportionate discovery hurting innocent companies and producing coerced or inaccurate judgments).

Stupidity, racism, and apologies (Updated)

Meyers Leonard, a back-up big man for the Miami Heat who has missed most of this season with a shoulder injury, was playing Call of Duty on a live Twitch and trash-talked a fellow player as a "fucking kike bitch." He has lost a bunch of gaming sponsors and will be "away from" the team "indefinitely." Leonard apologized, in a pretty unqualified manner, albeit with a touch of "[t]his is not a proper representation of who I am." But I want to unpack some pieces of his statement.

• "I didn't know what the word meant at the time" and he was "ignoran[t] about its history and how offensive it is to the Jewish community." He is "more aware of its meaning."

    What does this mean? If he is saying he did not know it was an anti-Jewish slur, I find that hard to believe. While not as common as other slurs and epithets, I would think people would know of the central anti-Jewish slur (I have never been called a kike to my face, but I know about the word). Has he never seen Porky's (dating myself, I know)?

    What did he think the word meant? He understood it as an insult, a pejorative adjective that he could squeeze between a pejorative adverb and an insulting noun. He used it with the intent to form an insult, albeit a playful one in the course of gaming trash-talk. Did he think he was using a made-up word or a random word he had just heard somewhere? Then how did he know it was insulting? Did he know the word was insulting, but not know towards whom the word was insulting? Did he think it was some cool-sounding word to use for trash talk? (Update: I will repeat a point I have seen elsewhere from several people that I think makes a similar point: The word was in his vocabulary. It kind of beggars belief to say that he did not know the meaning of a word he had at his disposal as an insult)

    Or is he saying that he knew the word was insulting, but did not know its history or origins? In which case, I do not care. No one is actually sure of the word's history or origins. The leading theory (attributed to Leo Rosten) is it came from the Yiddish word for "circle" (kikel) or "little circle" (kikeleh) and the practice of Jewish immigrants signing papers with a circle (rather than an X). Another is that it was a derogatory reference (begun by established German-Jewish immigrants) to newer Eastern-European-Jewish immigrants whose names often ended in -ki or -ky (e.g., Meier Suchowlański or Meyer Lansky, as he was sometimes called). Either way, knowledge (or lack of knowledge) of a slur's etymology is cute misdirection that should not distract. Using a slur is using  a slur, whether you know where it came from; you are not immunized in using the slur if you are unclear of its origins, because it remains a slur. The question is whether he knew it was anti-Jewish, regardless of where it comes from. Which returns to the prior paragraph and what he thought the term means--that is, what kind of fucking bitch was he talking about there?

• "I am committed to seeking out people who can help educate me about this type of hate and how we can fight it."

    Here is all the education he needs: Don't use anti-Jewish epithets. It is unnecessary for Meyers Leonard to learn about the thousands-of-years-long history of anti-Jewish hatred or to advocate against anti-Jewish bigotry. I do not really care if he is Judenhaas or what he thinks and says in his heart or what causes he supports or opposes. If he does not want to be a pariah and wants to continue earning almost $ 1 million per point (Meyers makes $ 9.4 million and had scored 10 points in 3 games prior to his injury), he should try to refrain from using slurs in a public forum that he set up. The rest is up to him.

•  Leonard did not kneel during the national anthem in the NBA Bubble last season. He tried to thread the needle with the usual tropes about supporting the cause but not disrespecting the flag and the military (his brother is in the military). But some of this conversation is recalling that, running along the lines of "see, he showed you who he was and what he believed last season when he refused to join his teammates in kneeling during the anthem, this is more of the same."

    I am troubled by that progression. It is a leap from not engaging in a particular protest against racist policing to the conclusion that he opposes or is antagonistic to that cause to the conclusion that he is a racist who supports racist policing. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. But refusing to participate in one expressive activity is not revealing of broader views, certainly not in the same way as using an epithet. It smacks too much of "if you do not support my cause in my chosen way, you are opposed to my cause."

I hope this will be the last time I write about Meyers Leonard.

Update: Julian Edelman, who has become the most outspoken Jewish athlete, penned an open letter to Leonard inviting Leonard to a Shabbat dinner and warning of the dangers of casual ignorance about hate and epithets.