Short Circuit: A Roundup of Recent Federal Court Decisions
Please enjoy the latest edition of Short Circuit, a weekly feature written by a bunch of people at the Institute for Justice.
New on Unpublished Opinions, IJ’s roundtable podcast: public interest attorneys and social media, specialized courts, and judges wearing wigs.
- Narrow ruling (for now) in buzzy nondelegation case. Issue: Does FINRA, a private corporation that stockbrokers must join, wield too much power by expelling members without any government oversight? Stockbroker Alpine Securities: Absolutely—FINRA can’t expel us! (Even if our alleged client fees are outrageous.) D.C. Circuit: We’ll meet you halfway—no expulsion until SEC review, but FINRA hearing moves forward. Partial dissent: Majority’s partial injunction “is a victory for the Constitution” but doesn’t go far enough. Private regulatory hearings without government oversight are flat-out unconstitutional.
- Fans of the book Planet Narnia will be familiar with the theory that C. S. Lewis’ seven-part Chronicles are actually about the seven medieval planets, even though Lewis literally never told anyone about it and no one supposed it until decades after his death. Well, a Short Circuit reader has a similar theory about Harry Potter and this First Circuit appellate-waiver opinion by Judge Selya. The clues: “transmogrify” (self-explanatory), “umbrage” (Dolores Umbridge), “paint the lily” (Harry’s mother), and the fact that the defendant/appellant is named Ronald (Ron Weasley). We report, you decide.
- Guatemalan woman seeks asylum, claiming gang members killed her family and were targeting her next. Immigration judge: Asylum denied. Board of Immigration Appeals: Appeal dismissed—you filed a day late. First Circuit: Remanded. This was FedEx’s fault for delivering later than promised. BIA’s own precedent says this, yet the Board “inexplicably” ignored it.
- Inmate at New York’s Fishkill Correctional Facility sues five guards, alleging that they assaulted him while he was having a seizure. Guards 1–4 argue administrative exhaustion. Guard 5 raises the same affirmative defense but then misses his deposition and stops communicating with his lawyers. District court: Guard 5’s answer is stricken, a default judgment is entered against him, and the inmate is awarded $50,000. But as for Guards 1–4—yeah, the exhaustion defense is sound, and the inmate’s case against them is dismissed. Second Circuit: Notwithstanding Guard 5’s poor behavior, we apply the “longstanding principle” that a default judgment cannot be inconsistent with a judgment on the merits. But wait! Is a default judgment against a defendant whose affirmative defenses have been stricken as a sanction actually inconsistent with a judgment in favor of co-defendants whose affirmative defenses were, um, not stricken? Second Circuit: Did we stutter?! The inmate loses!
- Scientific article about the withdrawal of COVID sequencing data by the NIH leads to a flurry of
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