Civil Procedure & Federal Courts Blog

Nash on Sovereign Preemption State Standing

Jonathan Remy Nash (Emory) has posted Sovereign Preemption State Standing to SSRN.

When does a state have standing to challenge the executive branch’s alleged under-enforcement of federal law? The issue took on importance during the Obama administration, with “red states” suing the executive branch over numerous issues, including immigration and health care. The question of standing looks to remain critical during the Trump administration, only with the political orientation of the actors reversed.

This Article argues in favor of sovereign preemption standing, under which a state would enjoy Article III standing to sue the federal government when (i) the federal government preempts state law, yet (ii) the executive branch allegedly under-enforces the federal law that Congress enacted to fill the regulatory gap to which the preemption gave rise. Sovereign preemption state standing arises naturally out of the function of states in the federal system. It is grounded upon parens patriae injury — that is, injury to the state’s ability to protect its citizens against harm. The federal government can properly preempt state law, on the logic that it then assumes from the state the obligation to protect the state’s citizens from harm. Where the executive branch then fails adequately to enforce federal law, it leaves the state’s citizens unprotected. The state then has Article III standing to sue the federal government on behalf of its citizenry.

The universe of cases where sovereign preemption state standing operates is not large, which should assuage concerns over opening the floodgates of state-federal litigation. Moreover, prudential doctrines can be overlaid such that more cases would be screened out. Alternatively, sovereign preemption state standing also can be construed somewhat more broadly so that it applies not only to the setting of executive branch under-enforcement, but to the setting of horizontal federal disagreement in general — i.e., to the setting of executive branch over-enforcement as well.

Parrillo on Contempt Findings Against the Federal Government

Nick Parrillo has posted on SSRN a draft of his article, The Endgame of Administrative Law: Governmental Disobedience and the Judicial Contempt Power. Here’s the abstract:

Scholars of administrative law focus overwhelmingly on lawsuits to review federal government action while assuming that, if plaintiffs win such lawsuits, the government will do what the court says. But in fact, the federal government’s compliance with court orders is imperfect and fraught, especially with orders compelling the government to act affirmatively. Such orders can strain a federal agency’s resources, interfere with its other legally-required tasks, and force it to make decisions on little information. An agency hit with such an order will often warn the judge that it badly needs more latitude and more time to comply. Judges relent, cutting slack and extending deadlines. The plaintiff who has “won” the suit finds that victory was merely the start of a tough negotiation that can drag on for years. 

These compliance negotiations are little understood. Basic questions about them are unexplored, including the most fundamental: What is the endgame? That is, if the judge concludes that the agency has delayed too long and demanded too much, is there anything she can do, at long last, to make the agency comply? 

What the judge can do, ultimately, is the same thing as for any disobedient litigant: find the agency (and its high officials) in contempt. But do judges actually make such contempt findings? If so, can judges couple those findings with the sanctions of fine and imprisonment that give contempt its potency against private parties? If not, what use is contempt? The literature is silent on these questions, and conventional research methods, confined to appellate case law, are hopeless for addressing it. There are no opinions of the Supreme Court on the subject, and while the courts of appeals have handled the problem many times, they have dealt with it in a manner calculated to avoid setting clear and general precedent. 

Through an examination of thousands of opinions (especially of district courts), docket sheets, briefs, and other filings, plus archival research and interviews, this Article provides the first general assessment of how federal courts handle the federal government’s disobedience. It makes four conclusions. First, the federal judiciary is willing to issue contempt findings against agencies and officials. Second, while several federal judges believe they can (and have tried to) attach sanctions to these findings, the higher courts have exhibited a virtually complete unwillingness to allow sanctions, at times swooping down at the eleventh hour to rescue an agency from incurring a budget-straining fine or its top official from being thrown in jail. Third, the higher courts, even as they unfailingly thwart sanctions in all but a few minor instances, have bent over backward to avoid making pronouncements that sanctions are categorically unavailable, deliberately keeping the sanctions issue in a state of low salience and at least nominal legal uncertainty. Fourth, even though contempt findings are practically devoid of sanctions, they have a shaming effect that gives them substantial if imperfect deterrent power. 

The efficacy of litigation against agencies rests on a widespread perception that federal officials simply do not disobey court orders and a concomitant norm that identifies any violation as deviant. Contempt findings, regardless of sanctions, are a means of weaponizing that norm by designating the agency and official as violators and subjecting them to shame. But if judges make too many such findings, and especially if they impose (inevitably publicity-grabbing) sanctions, they may risk undermining the perception that officials always comply and thus the norm that they do so. The judiciary therefore may sometimes pull its punches to preserve the substantial yet limited norm-based power it has.

 

 

 

 

Legal Challenges to Trump Executive Orders on Immigration and Refugee Policy

Yesterday several legal challenges to Trump’s Executive Orders were filed. If you want to keep track of the various filings and orders as these cases proceed, the University of Michigan’s Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse is collecting them here.

 

 

 

Today's Lawsuit Challenging Trump's Executive Order on Immigration

Here is the complaint in Darweesh v. Trump, which was filed early this morning in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York:

Download Darweesh v Trump Complaint

Some coverage of the case:

• Seung Min Kim (Politico)
• Nicholas Kulish & Manny Fernandez (NY Times)

 

 

 

 

Trump Litigation Update

Recent lawsuits against Donald Trump may end up raising some interesting civil procedure and federal courts issues. Here are some documents and reports relating to pending litigation:

 

CREW v. Trump
(This is the Emoluments Clause challenge filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York)

• Complaint
• Jonathan Adler (Washington Post, 1/23/2017)
• Michael Dorf (Dorf on Law, 1/24/2017)
• Chris Geidner (BuzzFeed, 1/22/2017)
• Eric Lipton & Adam Liptak (NY Times, 1/22/2017)
• Eric Segall (LA Times, 1/25/2017)
• Jim Zarroli (NPR, 1/26/2017)

 

Zervos v. Trump
(Defamation action against Trump in New York State Court)

• Complaint
• Michael Dorf (Dorf on Law, 1/19/2017)
• Rosalind Helderman (Washington Post, 1/17/2017)
• Megan Twohey (NY Times, 1/17/2017)

 

AES Electrical v. Trump Old Post Office LLC
(This case was filed yesterday in D.C. Superior Court by an electrical contractor that claims it wasn’t paid for $2 million worth of work on Trump’s DC hotel.)

• Complaint
• Michael Biesecker (McClatchy’s 1/25/2017)
• Josh Gerstein (Politico, 1/25/2017)

 

 

 

Mullenix on Stancil on Economic Theory, Equality & Procedural Justice

Now on the Courts Law section of JOTWELL is Linda Mullenix’s essay, Infusing Civil Rulemaking with Economic Theory. Linda reviews Paul Stancil’s recent article, Substantive Equality and Procedural Justice, which is forthcoming in the Iowa Law Review.

 

 

 

 

Bruhl on Article III Standing and the One Plaintiff Rule

Aaron Bruhl has posted on SSRN a draft of his article, One Good Plaintiff is Not Enough. Here’s the abstract:

This Article concerns an aspect of Article III standing that has figured in many of the highest-profile controversies of recent years, including litigation over the Affordable Care Act, immigration policy, and climate change. Although the federal courts constantly emphasize the importance of ensuring that only proper plaintiffs invoke the federal judicial power, the Supreme Court and other federal courts have developed a significant exception to the usual requirement of standing. This exception holds that a court entertaining a multiple-plaintiff case may dispense with inquiring into the standing of each plaintiff as long as the court finds that one plaintiff has standing. This practice of partially bypassing the requirement of standing is not limited to cases in which the plaintiffs are about to lose on other grounds anyway. Put differently, courts are willing to assume that all plaintiffs have standing as long as one plaintiff has it and then decide the merits either for or against all plaintiffs despite doubts as to the standing of some of those plaintiffs. We could call this the “one-plaintiff rule.”

This Article examines the one-plaintiff rule from normative and positive perspectives. On the normative side, the goal is to establish that the one-plaintiff rule is erroneous in light of principle, precedent, and policy. All plaintiffs need standing, even if all of them present similar legal claims and regardless of the form of relief they seek. To motivate the normative inquiry, the Article also explains why the one-plaintiff rule is harmful as a practical matter, namely because it assigns concrete benefits and detriments to persons to whom they do not belong. The Article’s other principal goal is to explain the puzzle of how the mistaken one-plaintiff rule could attain such widespread acceptance despite the importance usually attributed to respecting Article III’s limits on judicial power. The explanatory account assigns the blame for the one-plaintiff rule to the incentives of courts and litigants as well as to the development of certain problematic understandings of the nature of judicial power.

 

 

 

 

SCOTUS Cert Grant on Personal Jurisdiction: Bristol-Myers Squibb v. Superior Court

The U.S. Supreme Court’s docket of civil procedure and federal courts cases continues to expand. Today the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court, which will review a California Supreme Court decision handed down this summer. The cert petition presents the following question:

The Due Process Clause permits a state court to exercise specific jurisdiction over a defendant only when the plaintiff’s claims “arise out of or relate to” the defendant’s forum activities. Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462, 472 (1985) (citation omitted). The question presented is:

Whether a plaintiff’s claims arise out of or relate to a defendant’s forum activities when there is no causal link between the defendant’s forum contacts and the plaintiff’s claims—that is, where the plaintiff’s claims would be exactly the same even if the defendant had no forum contacts.

You can find all the cert-stage briefing—and follow the merits briefs as they come in—at SCOTUSblog.

 

 

 

Schwartz on Qualified Immunity

Joanna Schwartz has posted on SSRN a draft of her article, How Qualified Immunity Fails. Here’s the abstract:

Qualified immunity is a judicially created doctrine that shields government officials from constitutional claims for money damages, even if those officials have violated plaintiffs’ constitutional rights, so long as those constitutional rights are not clearly established. Courts and commentators share the assumption that the doctrine affords a powerful protection to government officials. And the Supreme Court has repeatedly explained that qualified immunity must be as powerful as it is to protect government officials from burdens associated with participating in discovery and trial. Yet the Supreme Court has relied on no empirical evidence to support its assertions that litigation imposes these burdens on government officials, or that qualified immunity doctrine protects against them.

This Article reports the results of the largest and most comprehensive study to date of the role qualified immunity plays in constitutional litigation, with particular attention paid to the frequency with which qualified immunity disposes of cases before discovery and trial. Based on my review of 1183 cases filed against law enforcement defendants in five federal court districts, I find that qualified immunity infrequently functions as expected. Fewer than 1% of Section 1983 cases in my dataset were dismissed at the motion to dismiss stage and just 2% were dismissed at summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds. After describing my findings, this Article considers the implications of these findings for descriptive accounts of qualified immunity’s role in constitutional litigation, the extent to which qualified immunity doctrine meets its policy goals, and possible adjustments to the balance struck between individual and government interests in qualified immunity doctrine.

 

 

 

 

Baude on Qualified Immunity

Will Baude has posted on SSRN a draft of his article, Is Qualified Immunity Unlawful? Here’s the abstract:

The doctrine of qualified immunity operates as an unwritten defense to civil rights lawsuits brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. It prevents plaintiffs from recovering damages for violations of their constitutional rights unless the government official violated “clearly established law,” usually requiring a specific precedent on point. This article argues that the doctrine is unlawful and inconsistent with conventional principles of statutory interpretation.

Members of the Supreme Court have offered three different justifications for imposing such an unwritten defense on the text of Section 1983. One is that it derives from a common law “good faith” defense; another is that it compensates for an earlier putative mistake in broadening the statute; the third is that it provides “fair warning” to government officials, akin to the rule of lenity.

But on closer examination, each of these justifications falls apart, for a mix of historical, conceptual, and doctrinal reasons. There was no such defense; there was no such mistake; lenity ought not apply. And even if these things were otherwise, the doctrine of qualified immunity would not be the best response.

The unlawfulness of qualified immunity is of particular importance now. Despite the shoddy foundations, the Supreme Court has been reinforcing the doctrine of immunity in both formal and informal ways. In particular, the Court has given qualified immunity a privileged place on its agenda reserved for few other legal doctrines besides habeas deference. Rather than doubling down, the Court ought to be beating a retreat.

 

 

 

Today’s SCOTUS Decision on Federal Jurisdiction & Fannie Mae

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision in Lightfoot v. Cendant Mortgage Corp. Justice Sotomayor’s opinion begins:

The corporate charter of the Federal National Mortgage Association, known as Fannie Mae, authorizes Fannie Mae “to sue and to be sued, and to complain and to defend, in any court of competent jurisdiction, State or Federal.” 12 U. S. C. §1723a(a). This case presents the question whether this sue-and-be-sued clause grants federal district courts jurisdiction over cases involving Fannie Mae. We hold that it does not.

Download Lightfoot v Cendant Mortgage

 

 

 

SCOTUS Oral Argument in Abbasi

Today the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in three consolidated cases raising issues relating to Bivens, qualified immunity, and pleading standards.

The cases are Ziglar v. Abbasi (No. 15-1358), Ashcroft v. Abbasi (No. 15-1359), and Hasty v. Abbasi (No. 15-1363). You can find more details on the cases here.

Here’s the transcript from today’s argument.

 

 

 

 

Effron on Jurisdiction and the Defend Trade Secrets Act

I have posted my latest article, Trade Secrets, Extraterritoriality, and Jurisdiction to SSRN.

Twenty years ago, Congress passed the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 which criminalized trade secret misappropriation and authorized broad domestic and international enforcement measures against trade secret misappropriation. At the time of its passage, the EEA was lauded by the business community, but it was heavily criticized by scholars who worried that the statute was too broad and too protectionist. In the intervening years, the business sector renewed its complaints about the insufficiency of U.S. trade secret laws, and scholars continued to express skepticism about using criminal law to enforce trade secret policy. Congress recently passed a new statute, the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016, which creates a federal private right of action under the EEA for trade secret misappropriation and economic espionage, and authorizes a variety of remedies including injunctions, damages, and seizure of property.

In 2003, I published a student note examining the EEA and arguing that the broad statutory language and potential for extraterritorial enforcement created problems for the United States given our commitments to the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (“TRIPS agreement”). Given the recent legislative efforts to expand the EEA to include private enforcement, it is time to revisit and update research on the EEA. This Article examines the new problems and challenges private enforcement of the EEA might present. In particular, this Article considers whether the problems of extraterritorial criminal enforcement extend to the civil context.

This Article proceeds in three parts. Part I gives a brief overview of the DTSA and its relationship to the EEA. Part II demonstrates that expanding the EEA to include civil enforcement creates personal jurisdiction problems. Part III argues that the doctrine of forum non conveniens presents yet another barrier to DTSA proceedings in U.S. courts. The Article concludes by noting that the jurisdictional necessities of civil enforcement under the DTSA set businesses on a collision course with the direction of personal jurisdiction and forum non conveniens law for which they have largely advocated the past few decades. In other words, viewing the DTSA through a jurisdictional lens reveals some of the underlying, understated, and confused purposes of the statute.

SCOTUS Cert Grant on Judicial Review of MSPB Decisions

Today the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in Perry v. Merit Systems Protection Board, which presents the following question:

The Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) is authorized to hear challenges by certain federal employees to certain major adverse employment actions. If such a challenge involves a claim under the federal anti-discrimination laws, it is referred to as a “mixed” case. This case presents the following question:

Whether an MSPB decision disposing of a “mixed” case on jurisdictional grounds is subject to judicial review in district court or in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

You can find all the cert-stage briefing—and follow the merits briefs as they come in—at SCOTUSblog.

 

 

SCOTUS Cert Grant on General Jurisdiction & FELA

Today the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in BNSF Railway Co. v. Tyrrell, which presents the following question:

In Daimler AG v. Bauman, 134 S. Ct. 746 (2014), this Court held that the Due Process Clause forbids a state court from exercising general personal jurisdiction except where the defendant is “at home.” BNSF Railway Company is not at home in Montana under Daimler, yet the Montana Supreme Court held that BNSF is subject to general personal jurisdiction in Montana, and can be sued there by out-of-state plaintiffs for claims that have no connection at all to the state. The Montana Supreme Court explicitly “declined” to apply this Court’s decision in Daimler, for two reasons: First, because the facts of this case involve American parties and arose in the United States, not foreign parties and an overseas injury as in Daimler. Second, because the plaintiffs here sued under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA), which is a different federal cause of action from the ones at issue in Daimler. Section 56 of FELA establishes venue for cases filed in federal court, and it provides for concurrent subject-matter jurisdiction in state courts. Yet the Montana Supreme Court held that this provision authorizes state courts to exercise personal jurisdiction, and that the statute overrides the limitations of the Due Process Clause.

The question presented is:

Whether a state court may decline to follow this Court’s decision in Daimler AG v. Bauman, which held that the Due Process Clause forbids a state court from exercising general personal jurisdiction over a defendant that is not at home in the forum state, in a suit against an American defendant under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act.

You can find all the cert-stage briefing—and follow the merits briefs as they come in—at SCOTUSblog.

 

 

 

SCOTUS Cert Grant on Article III Standing & Intervention

Today the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in Town of Chester v. Laroe Estates, Inc., which presents the following question:

Whether intervenors participating in a lawsuit as of right under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24(a) must have Article III standing (as three circuits have held), or whether Article III is satisfied so long as there is a valid case or controversy between the named parties (as seven circuits have held).

You can find all the cert-stage briefing—and follow the merits briefs as they come in—at SCOTUSblog.

 

 

 

SCOTUS Cert Grant on Class Actions and Statutes of Limitations

Today the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in California Public Employees' Retirement System v. ANZ Securities, Inc., which presents the question: “Does the filing of a putative class action serve, under the American Pipe rule, to satisfy the three-year time limitation in Section 13 of the Securities Act with respect to the claims of putative class members?”

(This question was the subject of an earlier Supreme Court case (IndyMac), but cert in that case was dismissed as improvidently granted because of a settlement.)

You can find all the cert-stage briefing—and follow the merits briefs as they come in—at SCOTUSblog.

 

 

 

SCOTUS Cert Grant on Class-Waiver Arbitration Agreements & Federal Labor Law

Today the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in three cases that raise the question of whether arbitration agreements that forbid class claims violate federal labor law. The cases, which were consolidated by the Court, are:

• Epic Systems Corporation v. Lewis
• Ernst & Young LLP v. Morris
• NLRB v. Murphy Oil USA, Inc.

You can find all the cert-stage briefing—and follow the merits briefs as they come in—at the SCOTUSblog case pages for Epic Systems, Ernst & Young, and Murphy Oil.

 

 

16 Cert Grants in Today’s SCOTUS Order List

Today the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in 16 cases. Lots of federal courts and civil procedure issues in the mix—more details to come.

In the meantime, here’s the order list.

 

 

 

D.C. Circuit Denies Motion to Intervene in ACA Appeal

Yesterday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied an attempt by two consumers to intervene in U.S. House of Representatives v. Burwell (No. 16-5202). The case involves, among other things, whether the House of Representatives has Article III standing to sue regarding the Executive Branch’s administration of the Affordable Care Act.

Here is the text of yesterday’s order:

Upon consideration of the motion for leave to intervene, the responses thereto, and the reply, it is

ORDERED that the motion for leave to intervene be denied. Movant-intervenors have not demonstrated that they are entitled to intervene in this case. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 24; Building and Const. Trades Dep’t, AFL-CIO v. Reich, 40 F.3d 1275, 1282 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (enumerating the requirements for intervention under Rule 24 and applying those factors to a motion to intervene in an appellate proceeding). This case shall continue to be held in abeyance, with motions to govern further proceedings due February 21, 2017. See Order (Dec. 5, 2016).

Download DC Circuit Order

Here is the initial motion to intervene:

Download DC Circuit Motion to Intervene