Tag Archives: SCOTUS For The Average Joe

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS – Mission Product Holdings Inc. v. Tempnology LLC.

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These people at Tempnology made some clothing and shit meant for people doing physical activities, that helped keep the wearer cooler. Not cooler like Chuck Norris, but cooler like the other side of the pillow.

Mission Product agreed to sell their product, so they had rights to the sell the product, deploy the technology in their own products, and to use Tempnology’s trademarks, logos, and shit.

Tempnology however sucked at business, and ran up operating costs to the point where they had to file bankruptcy. As a result, they sought to rescind their contract with Mission because of the financial strain that contract put on them. Basically, they wanted more money than the contract entitled them to.

Mission was like, “WTF, man? We have a deal, bitch!”

Tempnology was like, “Bankruptcy, motherfucker. Have you heard of it? Fuck you, and your contract too!”

Mission was then like, “Your inability to run your god damn company doesn’t mean that we should lose money, not being able to exploit the contract we have with you. You gave your word, douchebag!”

I assume Mission were using Tempnology’s technology in their own products where Tempnology wasn’t making much money off of it, because they weren’t making it themselves. But I’m guessing, so don’t quote me on that shit.

We all know bankruptcy puts a hold on debtors, but it also allows for the potential rejection of what the case referred to as executory contracts, which are basically contracts still in effect and not completed (or fully executed).

SCOTUS didn’t feel sorry for Tempnology at all, though. They were luck, “Screw your bankruptcy. Mission can keep exploiting your technology because you all had an agreement. You don’t get to reject that agreement entirely because you hired a shitty accountant or something.”

Judgement for Mission Holding 8:1. Gorsuch dissented, not even seeing how Mission was being unfairly damaged here. Maybe the other eight can explain it to him.

Read about the case or hear oral arguments here.

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS – Tennessee Wine and Spirits Retailers Association v. Thomas

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We all know Tennessee are a bunch of drinking motherfuckers, right? They loves them some alcohol.

Well, Tennessee apparently don’t care for outsiders, though. So they drafted a law that said you have to have been a resident of Tennessee for two years in order to get a liquor license, and then you had to be there for ten years to renew one.

Well, there were a couple people who failed to meet this requirement, but they lived in Tennessee and wanted to help Tennesseeans in their area get their fucking drink on. So they recruited the help of the Tennessee Wine and Spirits Retailers Association, claiming that they were being unfairly discriminated against based on the Dormant Commerce Clause which basically says you can’t commercially discriminate against another state in your own state.

But Tennessee, being enterprising statists, noted that the 21st amendment which repealed prohibition says that you can’t transport liquor across state lines in violation of that state’s laws. So Tennessee figured that meant they could make up whatever jack-ass backwoods bullshit law they wanted, and the 21st amendment protected them.

So now here we are in court, and SCOTUS has to decide if 21 lets them pass whatever law they want, even if it seems inconsistent with the Dormant Commerce Clause, and is discriminating AF against another state.

SCOTUS said, “Nice try Tennessee, but get the fuck outta here with this bullshit.” 7:2 in favor of the Tennessee Wine and Spirits Retailers Association. Gorsuch and Thomas dissented, presumably because Tennessee has pictures of them with prostitutes or something, I don’t know. They’re supposed to be limited government guys, and here they are voting for government over the people. *Sad face*

Read about the case here and/or hear oral arguments.

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS – Return Mail Inc. v. United States Postal Service

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Return Mail Inc (RMI) patented some sweet ass genius technology to help deal with mail that has an unreadable or missing address on it. They patented their tech like any good company would do.

Knowing that their tech was basically meant for one client, the US Postal Service (USPS), they went to sell USPS a license to use their patented software.

USPS being a bunch of mafioso-type big government bullshit artists were like, “Oh, we’ll use your patent alright, RMI. But we ain’t paying you jack shit for it. We’re just using it because we’re the federal government, and we do whatever the fuck we want!”

Knowing they might end up in court, the USPS took their mafioso bit one step further, and tried to get the Patent and Trademark Office’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board to declare RMI’s product unpatentable. If this isn’t blatant fucking theft, I don’t know what is.

RMI, realizing this was the bullshitiest bullshit that had ever been bullshitted, countersued saying this violated provisions in the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, which was designed to improve the patent process in general by changing the “first to invent” rule, to “first to file.” But within the act, it provides for “persons” to dispute patents.

So RMI was basically asking SCOTUS to say, “Look, the USPS isn’t a person, it’s a fucking mafioso oppressor and bullshit artist. And therefore, they can’t challenge our patent.”

SCOTUS listened, and decided to agree with RMI, that the USPS can’t be called a person by any reasonable measure, and for once, private industry fought the law, and private industry won.

6:3 judgement for Return Mail Inc. Breyer, Ginsberg, and Kagan dissented citing instances where the government was referred to as a person elsewhere.

Hear oral arguments and/or read about the case here.

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS – Azar v. Allina Health Services

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So, let’s talk about Medicare.

There are recipients on Plan A, which are usually low income folks. They get assistance by Medicare paying hospitals directly for their services. HHS makes an initial payment to the hospital, then subsequent payments as necessary based on how much more the services may have cost.

Plan C people, are usually higher income people, and they just get a subsidy from Medicare to pay for private insurance.

The Medicare Act pays more for hospitals who treat the low-income peeps that usually use plan A. Cost adjustments are based in part on something called “patient days.” Don’t ask me to explain WTF that means.

But nonetheless, Plan A folks have way more patient days, than Plan C folks, and that shit matters here. I’ll assume that Plan A folks, just abuse government more, than Plan C folks are able to abuse a private insurer, because that’s pretty much always true.

HHS are who manage how much Medicare will pay, though. Initially, they were averaging only the Plan A “patient days.”

But, if they averaged Plan A and Plan C “patient days” together, Plan C brought that average number down a good bit. So HHS, busted out some math and shit, and were like, “We can save some scratch here, if we include these plan C people in our average.”

Allina Health was all like, “You cheap motherfuckers! Drop those plan C peeps from your numbers, bitch! That’s some bullshit. The rules say if you’re going to change how you calculate that shit, you have to let people know in advance, and then we need to fucking talk about it first. You can’t just change that shit willy-nilly.”

So then HHS was all like, “We’re gubment, we do WTF we want!”

So then Allina was all like, “See you in court, tight ass!”

SCOTUS listened to their bullshit arguments and was like, “Listen HHS, you cheap mother fuckers. You change a fucking rule, the rules say you gotta tell people about it. Then you all have to talk about it. If there are no objections, or whatever, then you get to change the rule. So you are outta line, bitch!”

7:1 in favor or Allina Health.

Breyer basically was all like, “Do we even give a fuck about this? We’re SCOTUS, and this is some petty bullshit for some punk ass lower court to decide. Get the fuck outta here with this nonsense.”

Kavanaugh was like, “I can’t even be bothered to care about this. I’m out. Not even going to waste my time listening to this nonsense.”

Read about the case and/or hear oral arguments here.

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS – Home Depot U.S.A., Inc. v. Jackson.

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This dude Jackson bought a water filtration system from Home Depot. He bought it on credit, and then decided he didn’t want to pay for it. He argued it was some bullshit.

Citibank sued his dead-beat ass, and Jackson was like, “Oh yeah? Two can playeth that game you motherfuckers. I’ll sue you, Home Depot, and CWS, (the people who made the water filtration system).” He argued that the all three of them were in cahoots, engaging in unfair and deceptive business practices.

Back in 2005, Congress passed and Bush signed the Class Action Fairness Act, which basically was designed to prevent abuses of class action suits, because basically lawyers are shady motherfuckers, and they would sue in areas where the courts might be more sympathetic to them. So the act allowed the federal government to step in and take jurisdiction for larger class actions to protect defendants against such abuses.

So Home Depot decided to ask for such an exemption, and asked they be removed from this suit brought forth in state court. If they had countersued in state court, they conceded that they wouldn’t have a right to ask to be removed, which was a main part of their argument. Had they voluntarily entered into state court counter-action themselves, they’d be stuck. But they didn’t countersue, they were just dragged into this shit by Jackson and wanted the hell out of it.

SCOTUS decided that Home Depot was just a defendent to a claim, not a class action, and thus, didn’t get to remove themselves from this shit using rules designed for class-actions.  5:4 decision for Jackson. The left justices plus Clarence Thomas were the majority.

The other four conservative justices thought this was some bullshit technicality shenanigans, but unfortunately for Home Depot, Justice Thomas apparently prefers Lowe’s or Menards.

Read about the case or hear oral arguments here.

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS – Thacker v. Tennessee Valley Authority

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This dude Thacker was boating about, flying through the water like a mad man. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) were doing some work on power lines by the water, and one of those lines had fallen into the water.

The TVA had told the Coast Guard to keep these mother fucking boaters out of the area, and even announced that shit on marine radio, and the TVA even had two warning boats deployed to tell people to stay the hell out. But Thacker is one balls-to-the-wall motherfucker, and he decided to go blasting through the water, ignoring any warnings otherwise, blowing right passed the warning boats before they could tell him to stay out.

Thacker hit the power line, was injured himself, and his friend died.

So Thacker sued the TVA for negligence.

As we’ve discussed before, for some reason that I believe is entirely un-American, we have laws from protecting the government from getting sued, so here we go again, deciding when they can and can’t be.

The TVA is a private corporation doing government work. So they’re kinda weird that way. They are what’s called a “Sue and be sued” company. But, there are still exemptions for when they can and can’t be sued for some dumb reason, and this was the shit they were trying to deploy here to get out of this mess.

SCOTUS reviewed and unanimously ruled for Thacker, that he may sue the TVA despite all the rules the opposition tried to throw at him to prevent that shit.

Read about the case and hear oral arguments here.

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS – Rimini Street, Inc. v. Oracle USA, Inc.

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Rimini Street Inc (RSI) was a software support company. Oracle, the makers of a software RSI supported. Rimini tried their best to honor Oracle’s copyrights, but Oracle felt RSI was using their shit without their consent in a way they’d have never agreed to.

Oracle sued, and won, for copyright infringement. But this isn’t the nature of the SCOTUS case. What RSI wanted, was a partial refund on the judgement. Oracle had been awarded legal fees, such as money for expert witness testimony and shit like that.

Based on 17 U.S.C. § 505, it says that litigants can recover “full costs” and then goes on to define them in “28 U.S. Code § 1920.Taxation of costs” as shown below in a post from Cornell.

A judge or clerk of any court of the United States may tax as costs the following:

(1) Fees of the clerk and marshal;
(2) Fees for printed or electronically recorded transcripts necessarily obtained for use in the case;
(3) Fees and disbursements for printing and witnesses;
(4) Fees for exemplification and the costs of making copies of any materials where the copies are necessarily obtained for use in the case;
(5) Docket fees under section 1923 of this title;
(6) Compensation of court appointed experts, compensation of interpreters, and salaries, fees, expenses, and costs of special interpretation services under section 1828 of this title.

So now Rimini was all like, show me in 28 U.S. Code § 1920 where it says a single fucking thing about attorney fees, expert witness fees, and shit like that!

Oracle was all like, “See you in court, bitches!”

As usual, SCOTUS thinks the Ninth circuit are a bunch of fucking morons. When they ruled in Twentieth Century Fox v. Entertainment Distribution that “All costs” means “All costs” instead of just the costs outlined above in 28 U.S. Code § 1920, they must’ve been stoned AF.

9:0 Judgement for Rimini Street Inc.