Category Archives: SCOTUS For The Average Joe

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Comcast Corp. v. National Association of African American-Owned Media

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Black comedian Byron Allen owns a company called Entertainment Studios Network (ESN), in partnership with National Association of African American-Owned Media.

Since it’s his own business, clearly he thinks it’s the shit. However, Comcast, didn’t think it was THE shit, they just thought it was shit. As such, they declined to carry the network on their platform. Let’s assume that Byron and his peeps didn’t offer it up for free, the bigger issue for Comcast was probably that they thought he was asking for too much money.

It’s worth noting that Charter Communications, Time Warner Cable, DirecTV, and AT&T also declined to carry ESN. Clearly, several providers are not seeing the value in it.

But Byron Allen, having invested all this effort and money into this venture wasn’t going to take his rejection lying down. Instead, he decided to play the race card, and accuse Comcast of not wanting to carry ESN because there were no white people on staff, which is mildly ironic is it not? In case you don’t follow, he’s accusing Comcast of being racist, while owning a company that only hires black people.

But anyway, the United States has laws against commercial racism, 42 U.S. Code § 1981 being what was cited here, and if he can prove that Comcast decided not to carry his network for racist reasons, he may be able to sue Comcast for damages.

The question SCOTUS is being asked to resolve, is whether racism has to be the main reason for the choice not to carry ESN, or if merely a bit of racism played into it, that’s sufficient cause for suing them.

Also, another mildly ironic fact—the respondent’s lawyer was whiter than white.

SCOTUS handed down a unanimous decision for Comcast. You can’t just sue because you think race was a factor. It has to be the sole and deciding factor. Byron Allen and his lame-ass network can go pound sand. The world owes him nothing, including Comcast. If they don’t want your fucking network, you don’t have a right to demand it. I personally find his “civil rights” argument perverse and disgusting. If his network were amazing, Comcast would have killed to have it. Clearly, it’s shit.

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Kansas v. Garcia

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So we all know America has a bit of an illegal immigration problem, right? Well this case is about three specific illegal immigrants who decided to roll up into America, go to work and use someone else’s identification to get a job. They do this, because you need an SSID for an employer to hire you, and if you’re here illegally, well, you don’t have an SSID of your own. So while Garcia is named, there were other cases, too.

You see Garcia was driving to work, and got pulled over for speeding in Kansas. He told the cop he was headed to work. The cop decided to check out his story after seeing that he was already the subject of an investigation. They called his employer, and were sent documents showing his employment, including his I-9. The I-9 had an SSID on it; problem was, it wasn’t Garcia’s. Then they found out he used that shit on other forms too. So Garcia found his ass busted for identity fraud. Similar situation for the other two.

So now SCOTUS is being asked if the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) prevent the government from using information in an I-9 form for purposes of prosecution, if the same info is in other non-IRCA forms?

SCOTUS, in a political split, sided 5:4 with Kansas. That Kansas was well within their rights to use that info to prosecute Garcia, and there’s nothing in the IRCA preventing them from doing so.

Read about the case, and hear oral arguments here.

https://www.oyez.org/cases/2019/17-834

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Shular v. United States

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There’s a federal statute known as The Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA). It’s basically a law that is designed to take career criminals, with high rates of recidivism, who use weapons to commit their crimes, and keep them behind bars for a longer period of time, since they keep doing this dumb shit over and over again, and clearly normal sentencing isn’t working.

The types of crimes this law covers are defined as a “violent felony” or a “serious drug offense.”

The courts have taken the approach that “violent felony” should include anything that can be categorized as a violent felony, and that they don’t necessarily have to look to the particulars of a case to determine if they believe it’s a violent felony.

Basically, they’re trying to make it objective and not subjective, because federal laws and state laws will have different wordings and such, so it’s not always an apples to apples comparison. So somehow, the courts need to be able to determine what a “violent felony” is for purposes of enforcing the ACCA, and it shouldn’t be open to interpretation, in their minds.

Well, the issue here is whether they should take that same categorical approach to the “serious drug offense” verbiage in the ACCA. Basically they’re asking WTF does “serious” even men. Like if he was only joking about selling cocaine, he’s cool. But if he really was serious, that’s a hit?

Shular, the scumbag in question, had been busted six times for drug-related crimes. Five times trying to sell cocaine, and once for possession with intent to distribute. At one point, he was asked, and agreed to babysit his mother’s firearm while she was rebuilding her home, according to his story. But he’s a career scumbag, and isn’t allowed to possess a firearm. So when he was caught with one, prosecutors wanted his ass sent up the river for a long time. A felon in possession normally has a 0-10 year sentencing guideline, but the ACCA says if he has three or more convictions under their rules, dipshit gets 15 to life.

However, his crime under state law seemed to allow for the notion that he not know what he was in possession of, presumably saying he could have simply been a mule carrying a substance he had no real knowledge about what he was carrying.

You’ll hear a term “mens rea” in a lot of legal arguments, including this one, which translates to “guilty mind” in Latin. It basically describes whether the defendant knew what they were doing was wrong or not, or gets at the heart of their state of mind during the commission of the crime.

The ACCA requires mens rea, which means it requires the person knew WTF they were doing. But the Florida crimes he was convicted on do not require mens rea, which could mean he’s fucking clueless he’s committing a crime.

So let’s lay this out, because this is beautifully stupid.

This mother fucker committed a crime that the ACCA was clearly written to prevent. The ACCA requires mens rea during the crime, and Shular definitely had mens rea (he knew WTF he was doing). So it should be open and shut, based on the fed’s argument.

However, his lawyers, quick to look for a technicality to get their client off, are saying that the ACCA requires categorical linking of state crime to federal crime. Then they want to use that rule to exclude Florida’s crime from the ACCA. And if they break that link, then the fact he had mens rea, goes away because they want the court to ignore that fact because they broke the link between the state and federal crime, effectively trying to nullify the fact he had mens rea.

This is bullshit lawyering 101, right here. But I’ll give them an A for creativity.

Anyway, SCOTUS, clearly unimpressed, seemed to be particularly interested in wrapping this one up, as they decided it in pretty short order, unanimously siding with the United States who argue that a categorical approach is not required, but instead merely “whether the state offense’s elements necessarily entail one of the types of conduct.”

So in a big fuck you to Shular’s scumbag lawyers, they told them to fuck off and die. Nuff said.

Read about this case below.

Argument preview: Category is: the categorical approach

 

https://www.oyez.org/cases/2019/18-6662

Libertarianism, SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Rodriguez v. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

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So, this shitty ass bank, United Western Bancorp, Inc. (UWBI) had several subsidiaries, including United Western Bank. They apparently sucked at what they did, because they were losing money like they stored it in a toilet that just kept getting flushed.

Anyway, when you own several companies as a parent company, you can file one big ass tax form each year for the parent company instead of a bunch of little forms for each of your subsidiaries, so that’s what these assholes did.

Well, one of their branches United Western Bank (UWB) lost so much damn money, they qualified for a $4,000,000 tax refund. So the parent UWBI was like, “gimme that money, bitches.” Rodriguez, they’re Chapter 7 attorney, and the petitioner here, filed one big ass return for all of UWBI, claiming the losses of UWB, and getting that big ass refund as a result.

However, the FDIC had closed down UWB (the subsidiary), and took them into receivership because they were the shittiest bank that ever banked.  Now UWBI (the parent) was told that the FDIC was taking UWBI’s refund, because they argued it went to UWB since they were the source of the loss, and therefore the FDIC would use that money to pay its debtors.

But UWBI was like, “Fuck you, you government pricks. We need that money.” So one court agreed, another court didn’t, as is usual. And eventually, these assholes found their way to SCOTUS.

In 1973, the courts had ruled on a previous case where they decided that a refund of this nature, absent any other agreement, belonged to the parent company. They call this the Bob Richards rule, because that’s the case it was named after in 1973.

But the FDIC is arguing that they did have an agreement between the subsidiary and the parent, and therefore the Bob Richards rule does not apply.

You can read about the case and hear oral arguments here.

Also, a pretty detailed analysis here and here.

So SCOTUS is now being asked whether state law or federal law determine who gets a tax refund. Because state law would mean Rodriguez wins. SCOTUS being keen on state’s rights determined that the state can and should handle this shit, and unanimously decided for Rodriguez, telling the FDIC to go eat a bag of dicks.

Libertarianism, SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Peter v. NantKwest

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So this dude, Dr. Hans Klingemann was doing some work on immunotherapy, and discover what was termed natural killer cells, as an effective method for going after and killing cancer. So he worked with the company NantKwest to patent this shit.

Problem for Doc Lingemann, was this comes form the patient’s own blood, and not necessarily something Klingemann makes himself. So the Patent Office was all like, “You’re joking with this shit, right? Get the fuck out of here.” His Patent claim was denied as “obvious.” You don’t get to patent naturally occurring shit, and try to take credit for mother nature’s work.

Klingemann and NantKwest were persistent fucks, because they appealed, and their dumb asses lost again. So then they appealed to the U.S. District course, and lost the fuck yet again.

You’d think this would be over, but no.

You see, the Patent Office had to pay motherfuckers to justify their position through all these hearings and appeals, and so the USPTO was like, “You cost us $113,000 you motherfucker. We want our money back for you wasting our time.”

According to 35 U.S.C. § 145, “[a]ll the expenses of the proceedings” of these hearings are recoverable by the PTO if they win their judgement. But a district court was like, “Seriously, PTO? It’s bad enough you denied this guy his patent, you want him to pay your legal fees, too? Come on with this bullshit. In this country, you pay your attorneys, and I pay mine. That’s how it fucking works. Now piss off. Your recoverable expenses are paying for expert witnesses and shit, nothing more.” Judgement for NantKwest.

But now the PTO are the persistent fucks, because they’re like, “Fuck you, you lower court motherfuckers, we’re going to SCOTUS. We want our fucking money.”

So, here were are at SCOTUS to determine if the 35 U.S.C. § 145, “[a]ll the expenses of the proceedings” statement trumps all the legal precedent in U.S. history and considers legal fees are part of the expenses or not.

SCOTUS unanimously ruled in favor Nantkwest, telling the USPTO to go fuck themselves. You pay your legal fees, and they pay theirs. Nuff said.

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Monasky v. Taglieri

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Michelle Monasky, the petitioner, decided American men just weren’t for her, and so she decided to marry this Italian prick Domenico Taglieri. They were married in the US, but after a couple years later, moved to Italy.

Taglieri was an abusive fuck, but apparently in a moment of intimacy, got Monasky pregnant. Monasky and Taglieri split up in Italy for work reasons, and resided a couple hours from each other. While she was pregnant, she eventually decided she’d had enough of Taglieri’s bullshit, and began considering coming home to the USA.

Once the baby was born, she applied for a visa for the tyke, and came home.

Taglieri, didn’t find this funny at all. So he sued in an Italian court to have the child returned.

The Hague Convention that most civilized countries are a part of, has rules against one parent taking a baby out of its home country, to get away from another parent, without expressed permission. However the wording is a little vague, because they don’t say, “from the country the child was born in” or a very objective term like that.

Instead, they wrote it as “under the law of the State in which the child was habitually resident immediately before the removal.”

Since the kid was only a couple months old, it wasn’t even old enough to have a fucking habit. It was in Never-Never-Land as far as it knew.

A district court agreed Monasky must return her child to Italy, according to Hague rules. But, she’s fighting it as you might expect, arguing that her child wasn’t old enough to be “habitual” at anything.

And besides, Taglieri is a physically abusive prick, remember?

So now she’s asking SCOTUS to tell the district court they’re a bunch of morons, and rule in favor of her, saying that she didn’t violate Hague Convention rules, and allow her to keep her child here in the USA.

SCOTUS reviewed and unanimously sided with Taglieri. A child’s habitual residence is based on the all the information about their residence, not some bullshit agreement between the parents or something. For his short ass little life, the kid was Italian. So he is to be returned to Italy until this shit can be settled otherwise.

 

Argument preview: Justices return to international child-custody convention

https://www.oyez.org/cases/2019/18-935

 

 

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Intel Corp. Investment Policy Committee v. Sulyma

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This dude Sulyma worked for Intel from 2010-2012, and as such was involved in their retirement plan.

Because government hasn’t found an industry it can resist regulating, taxing, or both, it passed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), which sets standards as to how investments are supposed to be diversified and other shit like that.

Intel had run afoul of these guidelines, and as such, Sulyma potentially lost potential income/gains in his retirement plan. It should be known, that had they diversified better, it’s not a guarantee that the other funds they might’ve invested in, would have done any better whatsoever. So Sulyma’s argument is purely hypothetical, versus having an objective understanding of the different in performance he might’ve expected.

So Sulyma decided to sue Intel in 2015, because fuck it, suing people is the American way, right? I have a shiny dollar that says he got his dumb ass fired, and was merely seeking revenge, but ahh well, that’s not important.

ERISA has a 3 year time bar, which says, ““from the earliest date on which the plaintiff had actual knowledge of the breach or violation.” 2012-2015 is the time we’re discussing, so  guess what? This dude is just over his three years. But Sulyma and his ambulance chaser are nothing if not creative.

So these assholes are saying, “Sure, you sent us like all kinds of paperwork that told us precisely what you invested my retirement money in. Sure, I should have read through it. But I’m lazy AF, and I didn’t. Fuck you. So that means, I didn’t know shit. And therefore, I had no knowledge that Intel was fucking up until I did read that shit. Therefore, it hasn’t been three years since I knew you were in breech, you motherfuckers. The law says “actual knowledge” not a possibility of knowledge.”

So here we are at SCOTUS deciding if Sulyma’s neglect, is a good enough excuse to allow him to sue past the time bar.

SCOTUS decided that the wording of the law is pretty clear. Even if Sulyma’s a dumb fuck who screwed up, the law is written with the phrase of “actual knowledge” and there’s no fucking way you can define that as anything other than this dumb fuck actually knew it. Not, that he had the opportunity to know it.

Unanimous decision for Sulyma.