The Supreme Court’s Conservatives Issued a Decision Too Extreme for Clarence Thomas

It is virtually impossible to describe the extremeness of this decision:

The Supreme Court’s Conservatives Issued a Decision Too Extreme for Clarence Thomas (Slate)​

"On Friday, the Supreme Court pulled off a heist decades in the making. In TransUnion v. Ramirez, five conservative justices seized Congress’ power to create new individual rights and protect victims by authorizing lawsuits when those rights are violated. Instead, the court awarded itself the power to decide which rights may be vindicated in federal court, overturning Congress’ own decisions about which harms deserve redress. Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s opinion for the court was so extreme it prompted Justice Clarence Thomas to write a furious dissent, joined by the liberals, that accused the majority of infidelity to the Constitution."

The breadth and import of the decision are hard to fathom. The underlying premise is that Congress does not have the authority to create a cause of action unless the Court lets it. Supreme Court Blocks Congress on the Right to Sue (Bloomberg). This is insanity, and arrogates power to the Courts that the Constitution clearly did not envision, a project that Justice Scalia began in the 1990s. "Kavanaugh further explained that it was up to the Supreme Court, not Congress, to decide whether there had been concrete injury in a given situation. Thus, the fact that Congress makes something an injury under the law is never enough to confer standing. The view of harm and laws passed by Congress, the court said, may be “instructive” but nothing more."

The case arose from a series of statutory violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act by the credit reporting agency TransUnion that took place in early 2000s. In the immediate post-9/11 era, TransUnion started offering an add-on product that purported to tell anyone seeking a report whether the individual in question was on the federal government’s list of terrorists and drug traffickers. Unfortunately, TransUnion only bothered to compare first and last names, not dates of birth, initials or any other details that might very easily have made it clear whether the people were in fact the same ones on the list of the Office of Foreign Assets Control.

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It is hard to imagine a more worthy basis for suit, and the suit was foursquare within the ambit of the law.

The opinions are here.

NWRatCon said:

It is virtually impossible to describe the extremeness of this decision:

The Supreme Court’s Conservatives Issued a Decision Too Extreme for Clarence Thomas (Slate)​

"On Friday, the Supreme Court pulled off a heist decades in the making. In TransUnion v. Ramirez, five conservative justices seized Congress’ power to create new individual rights and protect victims by authorizing lawsuits when those rights are violated. Instead, the court awarded itself the power to decide which rights may be vindicated in federal court, overturning Congress’ own decisions about which harms deserve redress. Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s opinion for the court was so extreme it prompted Justice Clarence Thomas to write a furious dissent, joined by the liberals, that accused the majority of infidelity to the Constitution."

The breadth and import of the decision are hard to fathom. The underlying premise is that Congress does not have the authority to create a cause of action unless the Court lets it. Supreme Court Blocks Congress on the Right to Sue (Bloomberg). This is insanity, and arrogates power to the Courts that the Constitution clearly did not envision, a project that Justice Scalia began in the 1990s. "Kavanaugh further explained that it was up to the Supreme Court, not Congress, to decide whether there had been concrete injury in a given situation. Thus, the fact that Congress makes something an injury under the law is never enough to confer standing. The view of harm and laws passed by Congress, the court said, may be “instructive” but nothing more."

It is hard to imagine a more worthy basis for suit, and the suit was foursquare within the ambit of the law.

The opinions are here.

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It's not every day when Clarence not only opposes his Wingnut buddies on the court but also speaks out against corporate power. Makes me wonder if his wife was out of town this week.

The opinion bedrocks and secures Marbury v. Madison.

DataPoint said:

The opinion bedrocks and secures Marbury v. Madison.

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Uh, no.

NWRatCon said:

It is virtually impossible to describe the extremeness of this decision:

The Supreme Court’s Conservatives Issued a Decision Too Extreme for Clarence Thomas (Slate)​

"On Friday, the Supreme Court pulled off a heist decades in the making. In TransUnion v. Ramirez, five conservative justices seized Congress’ power to create new individual rights and protect victims by authorizing lawsuits when those rights are violated. Instead, the court awarded itself the power to decide which rights may be vindicated in federal court, overturning Congress’ own decisions about which harms deserve redress. Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s opinion for the court was so extreme it prompted Justice Clarence Thomas to write a furious dissent, joined by the liberals, that accused the majority of infidelity to the Constitution."

The breadth and import of the decision are hard to fathom. The underlying premise is that Congress does not have the authority to create a cause of action unless the Court lets it. Supreme Court Blocks Congress on the Right to Sue (Bloomberg). This is insanity, and arrogates power to the Courts that the Constitution clearly did not envision, a project that Justice Scalia began in the 1990s. "Kavanaugh further explained that it was up to the Supreme Court, not Congress, to decide whether there had been concrete injury in a given situation. Thus, the fact that Congress makes something an injury under the law is never enough to confer standing. The view of harm and laws passed by Congress, the court said, may be “instructive” but nothing more."

It is hard to imagine a more worthy basis for suit, and the suit was foursquare within the ambit of the law.

The opinions are here.

Click to expand...

This is a pretty extreme take on the decision. The core of the decision is that plaintiffs need to suffer concrete injury in order to sue in federal court for violation of a federal statute. That is far from a radical concept. The lead plaintiff in this case sued because the car dealership from whom he was trying to buy a car got a TransUnion credit report which listed him as a "potential match" for someone on a terrorist watch list, and refused to sell him a car. Then when he tried to get TransUnion to fix the issue, TransUnion sent him confusing mailings. So he sued, and he won, and SCOTUS upheld the verdict as against him.

The problem is that he also sued on behalf of 8,000 other people. There was no evidence that 75% of those people ever had an inaccurate credit report about them published. And while each of them had received similar, confusing mailings, there was no evidence any of them even opened the mailings, let alone experienced confusion or emotional distress. For this TransUnion got hit with a $40 million verdict.

The Court held that simply because there was a statutory violation didn't give these other plaintiffs (apart from the lead plaintiff and the 25% whose reports had been published) constitutional standing to sue and recover damages. There was no evidence they had suffered any injury (reputational, emotional, or otherwise) whatsoever from the statutory violation.

And if you still don't believe it's not that extreme, note that all three liberals disagreed with Thomas that a plaintiff should have a legal right to sue whenever there is a violation of an individual right created by Congress, although they otherwise joined his dissent.

NWRatCon said:

It is virtually impossible to describe the extremeness of this decision:

The Supreme Court’s Conservatives Issued a Decision Too Extreme for Clarence Thomas (Slate)​

"On Friday, the Supreme Court pulled off a heist decades in the making. In TransUnion v. Ramirez, five conservative justices seized Congress’ power to create new individual rights and protect victims by authorizing lawsuits when those rights are violated. Instead, the court awarded itself the power to decide which rights may be vindicated in federal court, overturning Congress’ own decisions about which harms deserve redress. Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s opinion for the court was so extreme it prompted Justice Clarence Thomas to write a furious dissent, joined by the liberals, that accused the majority of infidelity to the Constitution."

The breadth and import of the decision are hard to fathom. The underlying premise is that Congress does not have the authority to create a cause of action unless the Court lets it. Supreme Court Blocks Congress on the Right to Sue (Bloomberg). This is insanity, and arrogates power to the Courts that the Constitution clearly did not envision, a project that Justice Scalia began in the 1990s. "Kavanaugh further explained that it was up to the Supreme Court, not Congress, to decide whether there had been concrete injury in a given situation. Thus, the fact that Congress makes something an injury under the law is never enough to confer standing. The view of harm and laws passed by Congress, the court said, may be “instructive” but nothing more."

It is hard to imagine a more worthy basis for suit, and the suit was foursquare within the ambit of the law.

The opinions are here.

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Consider the source. A fanatically extremist leftist rag, really?

I read the decision and Justice Thomas' dissent. While I have always been a big supporter of Justice Thomas since his well-written concurring opinion in United States v. Alfonso D. Lopez, Jr., 514 U.S. 549 (1995), I have to disagree with him in this particular case.

Plaintiffs can only bring a suit against someone if they have been actually harmed, physically or financially. TransUnion clearly needs to be held criminally negligent, but only those who were actually harmed should be reimbursed and/or compensated for their loss. Which, in this case, included 1,853 individuals. The remaining 6,332 plaintiffs that had the potential of being harmed, but weren't, do not deserve any compensation. However, those 6,332 who were not harmed, plus the 1,853 individuals who were, should all be presented as evidence in the criminal trial against TransUnion.

NWRatCon said:

This is insanity, and arrogates power to the Courts that the Constitution clearly did not envision, a project that Justice Scalia began in the 1990s.

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The irony of this statement cannot be described in words.

In someone's words

calamity said:

It's not every day when Clarence not only opposes his Wingnut buddies on the court but also speaks out against corporate power. Makes me wonder if his wife was out of town this week.

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You've been spending too much time in the steam room with the left, apparently its a shock to you when someone votes on principle. I can understand why, us conservatives have had a long history of jurists willing to break ranks with other conservatives and join a liberal minority: Kennedy, O'Connor, Roberts, Gorsuch, and Thomas come to mind. In fact, it was Scalia that provided liberals the 5th vote needed by liberals to turn back Oregon's right to expand marijuana usage rights.

Now tell us the last time one of the four, now three, left wing jurists broke ranks to join two or three of conservatives in an angry dissent? Like never?

Glitch said:

Consider the source. A fanatically extremist leftist rag, really?

I read the decision and Justice Thomas' dissent. While I have always been a big supporter of Justice Thomas since his well-written concurring opinion in United States v. Alfonso D. Lopez, Jr., 514 U.S. 549 (1995), I have to disagree with him in this particular case.

Plaintiffs can only bring a suit against someone if they have been actually harmed, physically or financially. TransUnion clearly needs to be held criminally negligent, but only those who were actually harmed should be reimbursed and/or compensated for their loss. Which, in this case, included 1,853 individuals. The remaining 6,332 plaintiffs that had the potential of being harmed, but weren't, do not deserve any compensation. However, those 6,332 who were not harmed, plus the 1,853 individuals who were, should all be presented as evidence in the criminal trial against TransUnion.

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Leave it to a left winger to submit an op based on hyperbolic characterizations of meaning, without a shred of interest in understanding the actual legal issues.

This is one of those rare opinions in which I remain agnostic as to the what is the legally proper result. It's an interesting problem...a distinction between injury to a plaintiff in fact vs. an injury in (or to) law. Upon reading large portions of both opinions, its clear to me that Thomas is making a fundamental objection to the court having changed, decades ago, what was constitutionally accepted regarding standing.

He may be right. While it makes "logical" sense that no damage to the "victim" precludes a standing for compensation (for harms not suffered) Thomas provides a perspective that damage to the law itself is a grounds for standing.

I would have to do a deep dive into all these lines of reasoning and cases, as well as some deeper thoughtful reflection, to make up my mind. But as previously, when Thomas disagred with even Scalia (about 30 percent of the time) he often had as good, and sometimes better, argument.