Friday At SCOTUS

Three decisions released today.

1. Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh delivered the opinion of the Court in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, No. 20-297. Justice Clarence Thomas issued a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan joined. And Justice Kagan issued a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Breyer and Sotomayor joined.

HELD 5-4: In this case, a credit union inaccurately flagged 8,185 people as being on a watch list of terrorists, drug traffickers, and other serious criminals, but only 1,853 class members (including the named plaintiff Sergio Ramirez) had their misleading credit reports containing OFAC alerts provided to third parties during the 7-month period specified in a class action lawsuit. The trial court and 9th Circuit held that all 8,185 had standing, because the credit union violated a legally established right of the plaintiffs and all of them were awarded damages. SCOTUS rules that “Article III standing requires a concrete injury even in the context of a statutory violation" and rejects "the proposition that “a plaintiff automatically satisfies the injury-in-fact requirement whenever a statute grants a person a statutory right and purports to authorize that person to sue to vindicate that right.” An injury in law is not an injury in fact. The 1,853 class members whose reports were disclosed suffered a harm with a “close relationship” to the harm associated with the tort of defamation. The Court has no trouble concluding that the 1,853 class members suffered a concrete harm that qualifies as an injury in fact. but the mere existence of inaccurate information, absent dissemination, traditionally has not provided the basis for a lawsuit in American courts. The plaintiffs advance a separate argument based on their exposure to the risk that the misleading information would be disseminated in the future to third parties. The Court has recognized that material risk of future harm can satisfy the concrete-harm requirement in the context of a claim for injunctive relief to prevent the harm from occurring, at least so long as the risk of harm is sufficiently imminent and substantial. But the mere risk of future harm, without more, cannot qualify as a concrete harm in a suit for damages. Nor did those plaintiffs present evidence that the class members were independently harmed by their exposure to the risk itself. The risk of future harm cannot supply the basis for their standing. In two other claims, all 8,185 class members complained about formatting defects in certain mailings sent to them by TransUnion. But the plaintiffs have not demonstrated that the format of TransUnion’s mailings caused them a harm with a close relationship to a harm traditionally recognized as providing a basis for a lawsuit in American courts. The plaintiffs argue that TransUnion’s formatting violations created a risk of future harm, because consumers who received the information in the dual-mailing format were at risk of not learning about the OFAC alert in their credit files and thus not asking for corrections. The risk of future harm on its own is not enough to support Article III standing for their damages claim. In any event, the plaintiffs here made no effort to explain how the formatting error prevented them asking for corrections to prevent future harm. The United States as amicus curiae asserts that the plaintiffs suffered a concrete “informational injury” from TransUnion’s formatting violations. But the plaintiffs here did not allege that they failed to receive any required information. 

ANALYSIS: The dissent argues that the problem with the ruling is that Congress ought to be able to define legislatively what acts constitute compensable harm, even if they weren't traditionally recognized as harms at common law. The dissent is right and this ruling could pose problems in the future, even if the ruling in this particular case isn't deeply troubling.

2. Justice Neil M. Gorsuch delivered the opinion of the Court in HollyFrontier Cheyenne Refining, LLC v. Renewable Fuels Assn., No. 20-472. And Justice Amy Coney Barrett issued a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Sotomayor and Kagan joined.

HELD: Certain refineries were once exempt from an environmental law which authorized an extension of the exemption to be granted in some cases. The court interprets the law to allow extensions that reinstate lapsed exemptions, contrary to the usual meaning for the word extension. It is a bad decision, but one with narrow application.

3. And Justice Sotomayor delivered the opinion of the Court in Yellen v. Confederated Tribes of Chehalis Reservation, No. 20-543. Justice Gorsuch issued a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Thomas and Kagan joined.

HELD: Alaska Native Corporations are Indian Tribes for purposes of a Coronvirus relief bill aid provision.