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Saturday, August 08, 2009

Courts - Two interesting SCOTUS articles

David Ingram has a story to be published Monday in The National Law Journal, titled "Democrats Take Aim at Supreme Court Decisions: Congressional Democrats hope to undo several high-profile Roberts Court decisions." Some quotes:

The debate over Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court took place against a backdrop of tension between the Democratic Congress and Sotomayor's new colleagues.

Since January, Democratic lawmakers have pushed legislation that would reverse the effects of several recent high-profile decisions, many of them driven by the Court's five-member conservative majority. The Democrats want to allow state tort lawsuits over medical devices, restore a per se ban on vertical price-fixing, lower the standard for pleadings in civil suits and allow suits against aiders and abettors of securities fraud, to name only a few proposals.

The bills have little in common except that they would all override the Supreme Court's interpretations of law. Each bill is an expression of liberals' frustration with the direction of the Roberts Court -- and their hopes for Sotomayor. * * *

Now, even as they celebrate the confirmation of someone they hope will be a new ally on the Court, Leahy and other Democrats have their best chance in at least 15 years to push back against the justices. Veteran senators such as Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Arlen Specter, D-Pa., have thrown their weight behind congressional overrides, and at least one has become law this year. That legislation gives employees more time to file complaints about unequal pay, reversing the 5-4 opinion in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (2007). * * *

Among the top priorities is a reversal of Riegel v. Medtronic (2008), which Zieve argued on behalf of a man injured when his catheter burst during an angioplasty. In an 8-1 ruling, the justices held that the federal Medical Device Amendments of 1976 pre-empt common law claims in state court against the makers of medical devices. The House and Senate have each held hearings this year, and a bill to allow such claims is a priority for the plaintiffs' bar.

"Sotomayor Faces Big Workload of Complex Cases" was the headline to a story in Friday's NY Times, by Adam Liptak. Here are a few quotes from the lengthy story:
With the Senate’s approval of Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court on Thursday, the new justice will soon take on one of the most demanding jobs in the land.

Just over a month from now, Justice Sotomayor will hear her first case, one that may transform how elections are financed, at a special summer session of the court. A few weeks later, she will join her eight new colleagues to decide which of the hundreds of appeals that have piled up over the summer the court should hear.

The volume and difficulty of the work, and the task of fitting into a storied institution populated by strong and idiosyncratic personalities, has unnerved even judges with distinguished records on lower courts, fancy credentials and ample self-confidence. * * *

The new justice’s presence will unsettle and reshuffle the court, sometimes literally. When she takes the seat reserved for the junior justice — the one on the spectators’ far right side — four other justices will move to new places on the bench. When there is a knock at the door during the justices’ private conferences, it will be Justice Sotomayor’s job to answer it.

In addition to the blockbuster election-law case, the new term is frontloaded with important First Amendment, business, criminal and patent cases.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on August 8, 2009 11:44 AM
Posted to Courts in general