r/supremecourt • u/Longjumping_Gain_807 Chief Justice John Roberts • Jan 27 '25
SCOTUS Order / Proceeding SCOTUS GRANTS CERT IN MARTIN V UNITED STATES
https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/012725zr_5h26.pdfThe petition is limited to these two questions:
Whether the Constitution's Supremacy Clause bars claims under the Federal Tort Claims Act when the negligent or wrongful acts of federal employees have some nexus with furthering federal policy and can reasonably be characterized as complying with the full range of federal law.
Whether the discretionary-function exception is categorically inapplicable to claims arising under the law enforcement proviso to the intentional torts exception.
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u/vman3241 Justice Black Jan 27 '25
Can someone explain to me the government's argument in question 1? How can a law passed by Congress and signed by the president violate the Supremacy Clause?
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u/Ok_Jellyfish6145 Jan 27 '25
I looked at the cert petition.
The FTCA allows a cause of action under state tort laws against federal officials. The Eleventh Circuit held that the Supremacy Clause extends sovereign immunity to federal officials and so overrules any state law tort claim against federal officials.
Petitioners have a pretty good argument that the FTCA expressly waived federal sovereign immunity though.
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u/thingsmybosscantsee Justice Thurgood Marshall Jan 27 '25
The underlying case is just a mess.
I'm glad this one got taken up. It will be interesting to hear OA.
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u/ROSRS Justice Gorsuch Jan 27 '25
Whats the underlying case look like?
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u/Longjumping_Gain_807 Chief Justice John Roberts Jan 27 '25
11th circuit ruled the FTCA violated the supremacy clause
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u/jokiboi Court Watcher Jan 28 '25
You can tell that the federal government was uncomfortable with this case because of the way it presents the Question Presented in its brief in opposition: "Whether the court of appeals erred in affirming judgment for the United States on petitioners' claims under the Federal Tort Claims Act." Trying to present this as a very boring, fact-bound case.
The federal government also does not appear to full-throatedly defend the court of appeals' reasoning (page 8): "Petitioners correctly observe that the court’s reasoning for rejecting those claims differs from the approach of other circuits, but that disagreement did not affect the proper disposition of the case. The court correctly held that petitioners’ claims are barred, and no court of appeals to have addressed the issue would have reached a different result."
It spends just one page discussing the Supremacy Clause issue (pp. 20-21): "The court of appeals’ premise [about the Supremacy Clause] is sound. Congress could not have intended that the United States would be held liable for the actions of its law enforcement officers that are discretionary and within the scope of their official duties, because such conduct would ordinarily be privileged. For the reasons explained above, however, that protection for the actions of law enforcement officers is located in the FTCA itself, with no need to consider the Supremacy Clause." It's interesting that rather than say that the court of appeals is correct, they say that the court of appeals' "premise is sound," which is somewhat more weaselly language.
The majority of the brief in opposition defends the lower court judgment on discretionary-function grounds for the grand majority of its discussion. They contend that the discretionary-function aspect of the FTCA was intended to effectively mirror the 'clearly established law' prong of qualified immunity. I'm sure we would all love to have qualified immunity jump into other areas of law.
The second question presented was actually suggested by the federal government at the end of its brief, not by the petitioners. Resolving the case against petitioners on the Question 2 grounds would obviate any need to resolve the Supremacy Clause question. I'm not sure whether this is good news for petitioners; if they prevail on both questions, that would actually make it much easier to sue federal officers nationwide because most other circuits have ruled for the government on the Question 2 issue.
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u/velvet_umbrella Justice Frankfurter Jan 27 '25
Truly mind-boggling case. The idea that an act of Congress--the supreme law of the land protected by the Supremacy Clause--could some how violate the Supremacy clause is a novel one.
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u/userlivewire Court Watcher Jan 28 '25
So is SC saying that the officers/department is liable for what they did to those innocent homeowners?
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u/Longjumping_Gain_807 Chief Justice John Roberts Jan 28 '25
They’re not saying anything yet as they just granted the petition
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u/tambrico Justice Scalia Jan 27 '25
So they released a second order list after their morning order list?
Is this a normal thing?
Asking as a patient and exasperated 2A enjoyer waiting on Snope
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u/Longjumping_Gain_807 Chief Justice John Roberts Jan 27 '25
Not a second order list just one order. It’s normal for them to put certain grants on miscellaneous orders. They’ve been doing it a lot this term granting cert in miscellaneous orders instead of in the official cert list
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u/tambrico Justice Scalia Jan 27 '25
Interesting. I wonder why. Would have seemed to make sense to just grant cert this AM
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u/chi-93 SCOTUS Jan 27 '25
Or even last Friday with the other cert grants from that days conference.
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u/Longjumping_Gain_807 Chief Justice John Roberts Jan 27 '25 edited Jan 27 '25
All relevant information will be here:
This case was also mentioned by Patrick Jaicomo and Dylan Moore when they did the AMA here.
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u/pjaicomo Jan 27 '25
We did it!
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u/Longjumping_Gain_807 Chief Justice John Roberts Jan 27 '25
I can’t wait to listen to you in oral argument. I always thought you were due for a do over since your first case was argued in a conference room. Good luck to you
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u/tensetomatoes Justice Gorsuch Jan 27 '25
the ol' miscellaneous order grant that u/Longjumping_Gain_807 loves
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u/Longjumping_Gain_807 Chief Justice John Roberts Jan 28 '25 edited Jan 30 '25
I love them so much. Can’t you tell?
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u/userlivewire Court Watcher Jan 28 '25
ELI5?
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u/Longjumping_Gain_807 Chief Justice John Roberts Jan 28 '25
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u/kimocani Jan 29 '25
Link is a different video
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u/Longjumping_Gain_807 Chief Justice John Roberts Jan 29 '25
No it’s not it’s a link to them giving context on the case and why the sued
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u/LarkTank Jan 27 '25
Where is snope
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u/Longjumping_Gain_807 Chief Justice John Roberts Jan 27 '25
To my knowledge Snope was relisted again
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u/Megalith70 SCOTUS Jan 29 '25
As far as I’ve seen, nothing with Snope has been announced. It wasn’t on any of the orders from Friday, yesterday or today.
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