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The Power of SCOTUS VIII redux: IX is being blocked by the Senate.

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Re: The Power of SCOTUS VIII redux: IX is being blocked by the Senate.

One definition of "summary judgment" says "summary judgment (also judgment as a matter of law) is a judgment entered by a court for one party and against another party summarily, i.e., without a full trial. Such a judgment may be issued on the merits of an entire case, or on discrete issues in that case."

Is it an adequate paraphrase to say that "summary judgment is entered by the court when the case is so clear at the outset that it would be a waste of time to go to trial, the results would inevitably be the same anyway" ?

US Congress just won summary judgment against the executive branch in a "spending powers" case, that certainly will be appealed to SCOTUS.

on Thursday the House won a landmark victory on behalf of Congress’s power of the purse.

Federal Judge Rosemary Collyer handed down summary judgment for the House, ruling that the executive branch had unlawfully spent money on ObamaCare without congressional assent. Judge Collyer noted that Congress had expressly not appropriated money to reimburse health insurers under Section 1402 of the Affordable Care Act. The Administration spent money on those reimbursements anyway.

“Paying out Section 1402 reimbursements without an appropriation thus violates the Constitution,” Judge Collyer wrote. “Congress authorized reduced cost sharing but did not appropriate monies for it, in the FY 2014 budget or since. Congress is the only source for such an appropriation, and no public money can be spent without one.”
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Re: The Power of SCOTUS VIII redux: IX is being blocked by the Senate.

FreshFish said:
One definition of "summary judgment" says "summary judgment (also judgment as a matter of law) is a judgment entered by a court for one party and against another party summarily, i.e., without a full trial. Such a judgment may be issued on the merits of an entire case, or on discrete issues in that case."

Is it an adequate paraphrase to say that "summary judgment is entered by the court when the case is so clear at the outset that it would be a waste of time to go to trial, the results would inevitably be the same anyway" ?

US Congress just won summary judgment against the executive branch in a "spending powers" case, that certainly will be appealed to SCOTUS.
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No idea as to the number, but there are a lot of cases where a trial judge decides there are no factual issues to give to a jury to decide, and the law requires that one side prevail, only to see that summary judgment decision reversed on appeal. I'd be curious to know the statistics as to how many appeals arrive at appellate courts following trials, versus a lower court's summary judgment ruling.
 
Re: The Power of SCOTUS VIII redux: IX is being blocked by the Senate.

Reversed by DC Court of Appeals. SCOTUS declines case. The end. :D
 
Rover said:
Reversed by DC Court of Appeals. SCOTUS declines case. The end. :D
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Except then the power of the purse leaves the Legislative Branch. Those of us in or who used to work for tbe government went through each appropriation bill looking for the prohibitions and/or lack of funding.

If Congress says you must spend $100 million on bee research, by God you better spend $100 million on bee research, or somebody gets angry.

If rhe Executive can make unilateral decisions on spending the appropriation, then the law is fluid and means what the execution arm wants it to mean.
 
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Re: The Power of SCOTUS VIII redux: IX is being blocked by the Senate.

SJHovey said:
No idea as to the number, but there are a lot of cases where a trial judge decides there are no factual issues to give to a jury to decide, and the law requires that one side prevail, only to see that summary judgment decision reversed on appeal. I'd be curious to know the statistics as to how many appeals arrive at appellate courts following trials, versus a lower court's summary judgment ruling.
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Appeals after trials generally arise out of jury instructions and rulings on motions. Appeals of summary judgment decisions are common because they concern the trial court's conclusions of law rather than on disputed facts. Appellate courts defer to the trial court's findings of fact, since the justices were not present at trial to observe the witnesses.

But I'm quite sure none of that is news to you, Hovey. As to your question, in civil practice I'd think the percentage of summary judgment decision appeals is pretty high. Even appeals after trials often involve review of summary judgment decisions before trial that did not dispose of the entire case.
 
Re: The Power of SCOTUS VIII redux: IX is being blocked by the Senate.

joecct said:
Except then the power of the purse leaves the Legislative Branch. Those of us in or who used to work for tbe government went through each appropriation bill looking for the prohibitions and/or lack of funding.

If Congress says you must spend $100 million on bee research, by God you better spend $100 million on bee research, or somebody gets angry.

If rhe Executive can make unilateral decisions on spending the appropriation, then the law is fluid and means what the execution arm wants it to mean.
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That's... actually a pretty good argument to me. The solution to a d-ck Congressional majority is to elect a new Congressional majority, not go around them.

And make no mistake, this is a d-ck Congressional majority and their refusal to appropriate for Obamacare shows them to be cynical and cartoonishly evil, as well as stupid and ideologically hidebound. But I don't see a way to rebut joe's logic.
 
FreshFish said:
One definition of "summary judgment" says "summary judgment (also judgment as a matter of law) is a judgment entered by a court for one party and against another party summarily, i.e., without a full trial. Such a judgment may be issued on the merits of an entire case, or on discrete issues in that case."

Is it an adequate paraphrase to say that "summary judgment is entered by the court when the case is so clear at the outset that it would be a waste of time to go to trial, the results would inevitably be the same anyway" ?

US Congress just won summary judgment against the executive branch in a "spending powers" case, that certainly will be appealed to SCOTUS.
Click to expand...

Summary judgment is appropriate where there is no factual dispute.

It either means one side wins clearly (because they have no facts supporting them), or that it's entirely a question of law and a trial is not needed.

This falls into the latter category.
 
Re: The Power of SCOTUS VIII redux: IX is being blocked by the Senate.

joecct said:
Except then the power of the purse leaves the Legislative Branch. Those of us in or who used to work for tbe government went through each appropriation bill looking for the prohibitions and/or lack of funding.

If Congress says you must spend $100 million on bee research, by God you better spend $100 million on bee research, or somebody gets angry.

If rhe Executive can make unilateral decisions on spending the appropriation, then the law is fluid and means what the execution arm wants it to mean.
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1) Congress has no standing to sue because they aren't harmed by people getting subsidized care. They went judge shopping and found a GWB loon who will be overturned. 2) Congress appropriated the money to be used to fund the law. If Congress wants to restrict it to certain provisions let it pass another law to do so. Otherwise they're SOL, which they and you are about to find out when this case goes before a higher court.
 
Re: The Power of SCOTUS VIII redux: IX is being blocked by the Senate.

Trump's 11 possible SCOTUS nominees. I've never heard of any of them, and neither had Trump until somebody handed him the list.

Steven Colloton of Iowa
Allison Eid of Colorado
Raymond Gruender of Missouri
Thomas Hardiman of Pennsylvania
Raymond Kethledge of Michigan
Joan Larsen of Michigan
Thomas Lee of Utah
William Pryor of Alabama
David Stras of Minnesota
Diane Sykes of Wisconsin
Don Willett of Texas.
 
Re: The Power of SCOTUS VIII redux: IX is being blocked by the Senate.

Kepler said:
Trump's 11 possible SCOTUS nominees. I've never heard of any of them, and neither had Trump until somebody handed him the list.

Don Willett of Texas.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Donald Trump haiku—<br><br>Who would the Donald<br>Name to <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SCOTUS?src=hash">#SCOTUS</a>? The mind reels.<br>*weeps—can't finish tweet* <a href="http://t.co/a326AP0mN1">pic.twitter.com/a326AP0mN1</a></p>— Justice Don Willett (@JusticeWillett) <a href="https://twitter.com/JusticeWillett/status/610856791291916290">June 16, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
 
Re: The Power of SCOTUS VIII redux: IX is being blocked by the Senate.

It was a bad day for racists at the Court today. Racial gerrymanderers lost via TKO, racist prosecutors lost a 30-year old murder conviction because they kicked all the Black jurors off and had explicit notes stating as much that the defendant got through a FOIA request, and racist supervisors will have to face a lawsuit after SCOTUS reversed a statue of limitations dismissal in an EEOC case.

The gerrymandering one was unanimous, the others were 7-1 (Alito concurring, Thomas dissenting).
 
Re: The Power of SCOTUS VIII redux: IX is being blocked by the Senate.

unofan said:
Hence the "technical" knockout (the best kind of knockout).
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Got it. BTW, is there any serious gerrymandering challenge that the Court could work on, or do they just defer to the states and say "political problem, not my business"?
 
Kepler said:
Got it. BTW, is there any serious gerrymandering challenge that the Court could work on, or do they just defer to the states and say "political problem, not my business"?
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They've never held partisan gerrymandering is, in and of itself, a violation of anything (as opposed to when it's based on something else, like race). Not that they couldn't, but given that it's never happened after 250 years makes it unlikely they'll take it up absent some outside change.
 
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