SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Henry Schein Inc. v. Archer and White Sales

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The Supreme Court, apparently loving hearing their greatest hits on repeat, is hearing Henry Schein v. Archer and White Sales Inc. again.

This is a boring ass case where both parties entered into a contract with an arbitration clause which is not in dispute. For some reason, Archer and White think that Henry Schein is engaging in anti-trust business practices, and decided that such an issue is not a contractual issue, but instead a legal one, which should not be left up to arbitration.

SCOTUS in 2019, told Archer and White to fuck off, and sent it back to the US Court of appeals, telling them to send it to arbitration. That if there’s such a clear arbitration clause, it goes to arbitration no matter what. That arbitrators decide if the issue is not one for arbitration to decide, and they didn’t do that.

The appellate court however was like, “Hey, this agreement has some exemptions to arbitration, and therefore there are clearly times when it shouldn’t go to arbitration. So we’re leaving it up to the courts to decide if this claim is arbitratable or not. So SCOTUS was like, “We told you what the fuck to do, and you dare question us assholes?” So they put the claim on hold, and agreed to hear it again.

SCOTUS decided, “You know what, we don’t even know why we agreed to hear this nonsense again, but we can’t even be bothered to give an opinion on it.” So they dismissed the case without an opinion. “Now, go to arbitration, or do whatever the fuck you want to do. We don’t care.”

Read about the case here at Oyez

Libertarianism

Average Joe SCOTUS: Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski

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In a case with two names that can’t be pronounced by any reasonable person, we’re going to talk about free speech.

Chike Uzuegbunam, a student at Georgia Gwinnett College (GGC) is a religious dude, and he wanted to talk about his faith and shit with anyone who would listen. GGC has two free speech zones that can be reserved, and they told Chike to do that shit there. The rest of campus, he should keep his trap shut about any of his “God” propaganda.

Chike was like, “Fine you assholes,” and reserved one of those zones as he was asked, and then went on to spread the word of whatever religion it was he wanted to talk about. But Chike, is one dedicated mother fucker, and made up literature for that shit to go with his speeches.

So then the school was like, “Woah, we didn’t say you could pass out literature, man. WTF are you doing?”

So now Chike was like, “This is some bullshit” and sued them for violating his first amendment rights, and decided to seek damages.

The school, knowing they done fucked up, changed their rules accordingly, and then said, “See look at us, we fixed it. So now this case is moot, and we don’t owe him anything, right?”

But Chike was like, “Fuck you man, the damage was done. I appreciate you fixing it after the fact, but you can’t run over me with your car, put me in the hospital, and then say you don’t owe me for my hospital bills because you sell the car and can’t run over me anymore.”

So now here we are at SCOTUS to determine if mooting the case absolves GGC from owing Chike some scratch.

Chike’s side basically argues that a case is only moot if the courts have no action left to help them due to the changes made by the other party. While the school changed their policy, they didn’t do anything to compensate Chike as a result.

The defense of course didn’t suffer any injury, and therefore there isn’t any damages incurred.

Basically, the school was hoping SCOTUS would see they changed their rules, moot the case, and effectively sweep it under the rug, as opposed to dropping some legal hammer on them for shitting all over Chike’s 1st amendment rights. In order to make the case not moot, Chike’s team included like a fucking dollar’s worth of damages, so that even if the case is considered mooted because the school changed their rules, there’ still the matter of that fucking dollar to decide.

In an 8:1 decision, where only John Roberts dissented, SCOTUS ruled in favor of Uzuegbunam, saying that the nominal damages rendered the case not moot, and they could proceed, and the courts could ultimately decide the case for Uzuegbunam. That even nominal damages requested by the petitioner are worth deciding.

John Roberts in his lone dissent, was like, “You eight stupid assholes basically just ensured that every god damn case we’ll hear, from now to kingdom fucking come, will have a fucking dollar of damages added to it. Great job, dumbasses. We’ll never be able to moot a case and go home early every again. Serious, fuck you.

Read about the case here:

https://www.oyez.org/cases/2020/19-968

and here:

Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski
SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average JOE SCOTUS: AMG Capital Management, LLC v. Federal Trade Commission

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Scott Tucker, a loan-sharkish scum bag piece of shit, by any reasonable account, was in the business of making misleading high-interest loans. In the loans, the paperwork cross referenced several other documents and such, making it nearly impossible for consumers to really know WTF they were agreeing to.

Imagine you came to this motherfucker for a $300 loan. He’d charge you $90 in interest. So then, you come back to pay the fucking $390, you think you’re done, right? Wrong. In the paperwork you signed, you’re on the hook for another loan unless you opt out, so you are lended $300 again whether you fucking want it or not, and have to pay another $390 back. Shady AF, right?

Eventually, the FTC caught wind of this, and dropped a $1.27 billion hammer on him, citing §5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTCA), which prohibits “unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce.” They made him get the fuck out of that business, and give back his profits from the scheme, which is a little bit of a stretch, since he probably deserves some of the profits he’d have earned if he wasn’t such a snake in the grass.

The FTC intended to take the money, and do their best to make customers as whole as possible, that took it in the ass because of Tucker.

But, Tucker’s lawyers, attempting to be creative, tried to argue the law gives the FTC power to make him stop doing this shady shit (an injunction), but that making him pay $1.27 billion isn’t an injunction, and therefore is outside the scope of the law as specified in section 13, which allows for the FTC to issue a “temporary restraining order,” a “preliminary injunction,” and a “permanent injunction.”

Section 5 however provides for “other and further equitable relief” and Section 19 allows for “the refund of money or return of property.”

But Tucker’s (and his partners AMG Capital) lawyers argue that section 13 does not allow for them to demand monetary relief, without going through an administrative process first, so SCOTUS is being asked to affirm this, despite the fact that the FTC has done this since inception, and courts have always upheld it. Basically, the FTC is not “passing Go,” but still collecting $200.

It seemed like Tucker would need a miracle to win this one, and praise Jesus, a miracle has landed. In a unanimous decision, no less. SCOTUS agreed that the  FTCA does not provide the FTC in 13B with the authority to seek monetary damages. They divide relief into prospective (preventing future harm) and retrospective (remedying past harm) relief. Justice Breyer who wrote the opinion, argued that 13B is entirely prospective in nature.

The court’s opinion was that the FTC has other methods of seeking monetary relief, or it could ask congress to rewrite the bill. But as the law is written, what the FTC is doing currently, is fucking wrong, and they need to stop it. As you might guess, the statists in congress are already looking to rewrite the law, and accusing SCOTUS of siding with scam artists…all nine of them…including the left wing justices. Instead of admitting they just wrote a shitty law, which they’re incapable of doing.

Read about the case and hear oral arguments here from Oyez.com.

Additional information is here at SCOTUS Blog

Also here at National Law Review

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: City of Chicago v. Fulton

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Robbin Fulton got his ass busted for driving without a license. As a result, the tyrants at the city of Chicago, decided they’d take his car until he paid his fucking fine.

Fulton wasn’t just an idiot for driving without a license, he’s also broke AF, and had to file for bankruptcy. In that bankruptcy, he named the city as an unsecured creditor. Unsecured just means he owed them money, but didn’t put anything up for collateral with them, which makes sense since it was a fine, and not a loan. If you finance a car or home for instance, that’s secured since the bank can come and take the car or home.

So then, the Chicago Gustapo decided, “Fuck it, we’ll call ourselves a secured creditor, and keep this prick’s car.”

The bankruptcy court told Chicago, “That’s cute, now give this douchebag his car back, and stop being assholes.”

But the city of Chicago are persistent tyrants. They really wanted to keep Fulton’s hooptie. So the went to a federal district court, who were like, “Stop wasting our time with this shit. You were told to give the car back, now give it back.”

So then Chicago, still not convinced that they’re the assholes here, went to the Seventh Circuit, who were like, “Really Chicago? What the fuck is wrong with you? Give Fulton his piece of shit car back, already, and stop wasting everyone’s fucking time. It’s not even a nice fucking car. Why do you want it so much?”

But tyrants will tyrant, and now Chicago is here asking them if they can keep the car.

In a unanimous decision, SCOTUS decided Chicago was surprisingly AOK, here. Chicago retaining the property of Fulton and others isn’t akin to Chicago repoing it, and selling it to someone else, like a bank might do. So long as they don’t take ownership of the car, they can hold it until the owner exercises provisions in 11 U.S.C. § 542(a), which then allows them to get their cars back. Basically requiring them to sue to get their cars returned, as opposed to a rule that requires the city to automatically return them once a bankruptcy is filed, without any action needed by the vehicle owners.

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Trump v New York

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Back in July, Trump had the grand idea that the census which is used to determine congressional districts and such, should exclude illegal immigrants in their count used for this. Which seems pretty fair on the face of it, since illegal immigrants are criminals by definition, and not American by definition, thus shouldn’t be represented in Congress.

The census doesn’t even ask this fucking question though, but somehow he wanted them to take their full number of people, and figure out some way to get a tally of illegal immigrants, and remove those fuckers from that total. As usual, Trump is big on ideas, but short on ways to actually do it, and this is no different. So Trump just instructed the Secretary of Commerce to figure it out.

As you can imagine, a bunch of bleeding hearts who know that illegals tend to vote for them more, filed suit to block this order, saying it was unconstitutional, which is a colorful argument at best. Basically, they were saying that the Constitution defines how the census is used to determine the number of house reps, and trying to change that proportion based on a number coming from something other than the census, was contrary to the constitution’s scheme.

A federal district court agreed, so here we are at SCOTUS after Trump challenged it. So now SCOTUS is being asked to determine if the states can even challenge this, since it’s a federal rule. And if so, is Trump’s directive unconstitutional.

In a partisan split, SCOTUS sided with Trump, and essentially said that the lower courts no jurisdiction to give an opinion on this case, and that it was essentially too early for them to sue anyway, since a plan on how to do what Trump wanted to do, hadn’t even been finalized yet. They stated it was, “riddled with contingencies and speculation that impede judicial review.” Basically arguing, you can’t challenge it before he’s even decided how it would work. Besides, Trump’s directive to exclude illegal immigrants may require the use of estimates, which the Constitution doesn’t allow, meaning they could win on that, if Trump doesn’t figure out a plan for solid numbers.

Their ruling leaves an opening for it to be challenged later once Trump’s plan to do this is finalized, which of course is now likely moot since Trump’s dumb ass lost the election.

So while this seems like a win for Trump, it effectively changes very little, and it’s clear that Trump, had he won, could still ultimately lose the ability to do what he hoped to do.

The left-leaning justices dissented because they basically wanted to put an end to Trump’s agenda on this before he went any further.

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Facebook v. Duguid

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We all hate robocalls, right? Well, this is about a robotext. You see, Facebook has been sending messages to Noah Duguid that someone was trying to access his account. But Noah doesn’t even have a fucking Facebook account. This poor bastard got texts for like ten months.

So finally, Noah was like, “I’m suing these motherfuckers to make them leave me alone.”

He sued using the Telephone and Consumer Protection Act of 1991, which forbids robocalls, even though he was getting texts, not calls.

Well, in the statute, it defines a robocaller as a device with the capacity “to store or produce telephone numbers to be called, using a random or sequential number generator.” But the Ninth circuit opted to ignore that last sentence, arguing it doesn’t care if they use a random number generator, if it stores and calls numbers automatically, it’s a violation.

So here we are at SCOTUS to decide whether it has to use a random number generator to be in violation of the law.

In a unanimous decision, written by Justice Sotomayor, Facebook gets the nod. Section 227(a)(1) defines an autodialer as “equipment which has the capacity to store or produce telephone numbers to be called, using a random or sequential number generator; and to dial such numbers.” They argued that English works like this. Because the “using a random or sequential number generator” part of that text clearly modifies both “store” and “produce’ in the first part of the sentence, otherwise they’d have written it differently. Since Facebook’s software neither stores, nor produces numbers using a number generator, they’re in the clear.

On a side note, hold on to your hats, because this largely means that you’ll be getting a lot more calls of this nature, since it now limits the scope under the law, to only calls that were done randomly, and not specifically aimed at you.

Read about the case, and hear oral arguments at Oyez.com, or read about it at SCOTUSBlog or National Law Review.

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: United States v. Briggs

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Back in 2005, scumbag Michael Briggs, while in the Air Force, “after an evening of heavy drinking” went to the room of one of the junior members of his squadron, and forced her to have sex with him, despite her repeated efforts to say “no” and get away from him.

Eight years later, the victim was able to provide evidence and get this asshole convicted. However, in normal law, there’s a five year statute of limitations on rape where the person isn’t murdered, but Briggs wasn’t made aware of such, and the judge at the military trial didn’t advise him as such since the military doesn’t have that limitation.

So on appeal, he brought this shit up in order to try to overturn his conviction, instead of being decent, accepting he did the fucking crime, and therefore he should do the fucking time.

The issue here is that in the military, there’s no statute of limitations for rape. They describe it as an offense punishable by death, as they consider it a more problematic crime for them over when it’s done in civilian life, because it puts missions and teams at risk. But on appeal, the court said that if Briggs had been told about the statute of limitations, he would have asserted it, and therefore would’ve had his case dismissed, completely ignoring the fact that the military doesn’t have a statue of limitations on rape.

There are two other similar cases of scumbags raping people in the military, and the state of limitations issue being at question.

Two precedents being considered here are the Supreme Court’s 1977 decision in Coker v. Georgia and its 2008 decision in Kennedy v. Louisiana. Essentially these removed the capital punishment possibility from any crimes that didn’t result in death, which includes rape.

So here we are at SCOTUS determining who’s the bigger idiot. Briggs (and others), or the U.S. Court of Appeals. Does the military rules that don’t apply a statute of limitations apply, or does the 8th amendment as argued in those cases take precedent, and these scumbags get to go free?

In a unanimous decision, SCOTUS sided against Briggs and ruled that there is no statute of limitations on rape, and they he and other assholes like him, will have their convictions reinstated.

log·i·cal: capable of reasoning or of using reason in an orderly cogent fashion lib·er·tar·i·an: an advocate of the doctrine of free will; a person who upholds the principles of individual liberty especially of thought and action