The Upside-Down Treatment of Religious Exceptions Cases in the Supreme Court

MICHAEL C. DORF

Cornell law professor Michael C. Dorf comments on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last week to reject an emergency application from the State of Alabama to lift a stay on the execution of Willie B. Smith III. Professor Dorf observes the Court’s unusual alignment of votes in the decision and argues that, particularly as reflected by the recent COVID-19 decisions, the liberal and conservative Justices have essentially swapped places from the seminal 1990 case Employment Division v. Smith, which established that the First Amendment does not guarantee a right to exceptions from neutral laws of general applicability.

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Tabares v. City of Huntington Beach

Docket: 19-56035

Opinion Date: February 17, 2021

Judge: Ryan D. Nelson

Areas of Law: Civil Rights, Constitutional Law

After a police officer fatally shot her son, plaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 and California law against the officer. The officer shot plaintiff's son seven times in front of a convenient store after the two were involved in a physical altercation. The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of defendants on plaintiff's state law negligence claim. The panel explained that the district court erroneously conflated the legal standards under the Fourth Amendment and California negligence law. The panel held that plaintiff presented sufficient evidence that the officer's shooting of her son could be found negligent by a reasonable juror under the broader formulation of reasonableness in California law. In this case, the district court inaccurately concluded that plaintiff did not point to any evidence probative of the fact that her son exhibited symptoms of mental illness that would have been apparent to the officer; did not consider that a jury could find the officer's pre-shooting conduct unreasonable under California law, given the son's potential mental illness; and misinterpreted the Ninth Circuit precedent set forth in Billington v. Smith, 292 F.3d 1177 (9th Cir. 2002), in assessing the reasonableness of the officer's conduct at the time of the shooting. Therefore, the panel remanded for further proceedings.

United States v. Repp

Docket: 20-50248

Opinion Date: February 17, 2021

Judge: Richard C. Tallman

Areas of Law: Criminal Law

Defendant appealed the district court's order denying his motion for issuance of a writ of habeas corpus ad prosequendum directed to his current custodian, the Warden of FCI Phoenix, to transport him to Los Angeles for his initial appearance there on an arrest warrant for violating conditions of supervised release, proceedings for which a detainer has now been lodged against him with the prison. Defendant is currently serving a custodial sentence for federal crimes he committed in the Eastern District of Arkansas while on supervised release from an earlier federal conviction in the Central District of California. The Ninth Circuit dismissed defendant's appeal based on lack of jurisdiction, concluding that the denial of defendant's motion is not a final or appealable collateral order. The panel explained that the order defendant seeks is a precursor to contesting the alleged supervised release violation which led to the arrest warrant and the pending detainer, and it does not fall within the rubric of collateral orders which are "effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment." The panel denied the pending motion to expedite as moot.

Connell v. Lima Corporate

Docket: 19-35797

Opinion Date: February 17, 2021

Judge: Ryan D. Nelson

Areas of Law: Personal Injury, Products Liability

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Lima Corporate in a diversity action brought by plaintiffs, alleging product liability and negligence claims relating to a hip implant. The panel held that in light of the statutory text, context, and stated purpose, Lima Corporate was a biomaterials supplier of its Hip Stem – a "component part" supplied "for use in the manufacture of an implant" pursuant to the Biomaterials Access Assurance Act (BAAA), 21 U.S.C. 1602(1)(A). In this case, Lima Corporate was immune from liability under the BAAA and, under the circumstances, could not be impleaded under section 1606.

Ahearn v. Saul

Docket: 19-35774

Opinion Date: February 17, 2021

Judge: William A. Fletcher

Areas of Law: Public Benefits

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment affirming the ALJ's denial of claimant's application for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) under the Social Security Act. The panel published this decision to draw attention to the government's incorrect description, in its briefs in this and in other recent SSI cases, of the standard of review. In an SSI case, the panel reviews the decision of the ALJ for substantial evidence. If substantial evidence in the record supports the ALJ's decision, the panel must defer to the ALJ. In the absence of substantial evidence, however, the panel must set aside the ALJ's decision. The panel is not restricted to setting aside the ALJ's decision only when the evidence in the record compels a contrary conclusion. The panel rejected the government's application of I.N.S. v. Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478 (1992), which is an immigration case, and clarified that Elias-Zacarias does not describe the standard of review in an SSI case. In this case, considering the record as a whole, the panel held that the ALJ's disability determination was supported by substantial evidence.