Speaker 1: Welcome to scot Discast, a project of the Federalist Society
Speaker 1: for Law and Public Policy Studies. Our contributors joined us
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Speaker 1: US Supreme Court cases as they are argued and the
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Speaker 1: of the speaker. Hello, and welcome to scot Discast. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, Kyle hammernis On, behalf of the Faculty division
Speaker 1: of the Federalist Society. We are here today to discuss
Speaker 1: Williams versus Reed, which was decided by the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: in a five to four decision on February twenty first,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. Is my honor to introduce our guest today,
Speaker 1: Professor Tyler Linley. Professor Linley is an Associate professor of
Speaker 1: law at the J. Rubin Clark Law School at Brigham
Speaker 1: Young University. His research centers on the judicial, rural, and
Speaker 1: historical evolution of the judiciary in America. He has extensively
Speaker 1: examined published on judicial remedies, federal courts, constitutional law, and
Speaker 1: administrative law. And with that, I'd like to hand things,
Speaker 1: or to President Lee to get us started by talking
Speaker 1: about how the case got to the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2: Thank you. So this case comes out of Alabama and
Speaker 2: the plaintiffs are several more than twenty individuals in Alabama
Speaker 2: who applied for unemployment benefits in the wake of the
Speaker 2: COVID pandemic. As you might imagine, the Alabama Department of
Speaker 2: Labor now the Department of Workforce, was overwhelmed by a
Speaker 2: lot of the applications that came in in the years
Speaker 2: following COVID. The plaintiffs had a mix of complaints about
Speaker 2: the process for claiming Social Security or not Social Security sorry,
Speaker 2: unemployment benefits. One was in the primary one was that
Speaker 2: the Department of Labor, the Alabama departm of Labor, was
Speaker 2: not even processing their claims, that many of these sat
Speaker 2: for more than a year. Others argued that the notice
Speaker 2: that the Department of Labor provided them about the ear
Speaker 2: preliminary decisions that could be appealed within the Department of
Speaker 2: Labor or insufficient. The Alabama Department of Labor has a
Speaker 2: process that claimants need to go through. They submit an
Speaker 2: initial claim that has an initial determination and the statute
Speaker 2: requires that determination to be made promptly but doesn't provide
Speaker 2: a deadline. Then once that determination is made, then the
Speaker 2: claimant can appeal an adverse determination within the Department and
Speaker 2: then eventually up to the Board of Appeals, which is
Speaker 2: composed of members appointed by the governor. So this is
Speaker 2: an intricate process. Now, Alabama also allows for eventual appeals
Speaker 2: into courts of these determinations or challenges to the process,
Speaker 2: but an Alabama statute limits the judicial jurisdiction of those
Speaker 2: types of appeals. The statute essentially says that no circuit court,
Speaker 2: the state Circuit Court, shall permit an appeal unless that
Speaker 2: appeal has been exhausted through all of the administrative remedies,
Speaker 2: so has to go through all of the appeal process
Speaker 2: within the Department of Labor and then can come before
Speaker 2: state court. So these plaintiffs are stuck in the administrative
Speaker 2: process and they sue the Secretary of Labor, the Alabama
Speaker 2: Secretary of Labor in state court under section nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 2: which is a federal law. So this federal law, Section
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty three is generally understood to provide a federal
Speaker 2: cause of action for any violation by state officials of
Speaker 2: an individual's constitutional or federal statutory rights. So these plaintiffs
Speaker 2: say that the delays in the process or the sufficient
Speaker 2: notice violate both the due process clause of the Constitution
Speaker 2: and the Social Security Act, which kind of sets forth
Speaker 2: the procedures that states have to follow in administering these benefits.
Speaker 2: And so they go to state court saying, we want
Speaker 2: the state court to issue an injunction against the Secretary
Speaker 2: of Labor and the employees of the Secretary of Labor
Speaker 2: ordering them to process these applications or, in the event
Speaker 2: of the improper notice at the insufficient notice, to fix
Speaker 2: the notice and allow an appeal. And so they want
Speaker 2: an injunctive remedy, and the Alabama courts say, well, we
Speaker 2: have an Alabama law that says all claims that come
Speaker 2: out of this out of the Secretary of Labor at
Speaker 2: kind of any benefits claims need to be exhausted before
Speaker 2: we have jurisdiction. So we don't have jurisdiction. That goes
Speaker 2: to the Alabama Supreme Court. The Supreme Court says we
Speaker 2: don't have jurisdiction, and the petitioner's appeal saying no, No, No.
Speaker 2: Section nineteen eighty three. This federal law that we're suing
Speaker 2: under requires the states to hear this case preempts the
Speaker 2: exhaustion jurisdiction rule. And we'll get into exactly whether it's
Speaker 2: an exhaustion rule or whether it's a jurisdictional rule, but
Speaker 2: preempts that and doesn't allow its application when it comes
Speaker 2: to Section nineteen eighty three claims specifically.
Speaker 1: Great, so the case gets to the Supreme Court, can
Speaker 1: you talk a little bit about how each side argued
Speaker 1: the case before we jump into the decision.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the petitioners hear, the plaintiffs, those who are
Speaker 2: claiming unemployment benefits, had a broader and then a narrower argument,
Speaker 2: And the broadest argument is that although this exhaustion requirement,
Speaker 2: this requirement that the plaintiffs before going to state court
Speaker 2: have to exhaust their administrative remedies before the secretary of labor,
Speaker 2: that this exhaustion requirement is just categorically not allowed, even
Speaker 2: if it's framed in jurisdictional terms. And so you have
Speaker 2: a couple of cases that come beforehand that maybe kind
Speaker 2: of give a little bit of color to this. One
Speaker 2: is a case called Patsy that in which a federal
Speaker 2: court had imposed an exhaustion requirement. Often exhaustion requirements are
Speaker 2: kind of unlogged common law, may you know, judge made
Speaker 2: And the Supreme Court says in Patsy, No. Section nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty three does not have an exhaustion requirement, and an
Speaker 2: exhaustion requirement is inconsistent with this scheme where plaintiffs get
Speaker 2: to go directly to federal court and get damages or
Speaker 2: equitable relief for violations of their federal rights, whether it
Speaker 2: be constitutional or statutory. So we have that case, and
Speaker 2: then we have a case called Felder that comes out
Speaker 2: of Wisconsin. This is out of a state court and
Speaker 2: the or at least out of a state law. And
Speaker 2: in Felder, what happened was there's a state law requiring
Speaker 2: a notice of the claim. Plaint just had to give
Speaker 2: a notice of the claim to the defendants and then
Speaker 2: let it sit for a certain amount of time before
Speaker 2: they could bring a suit. And the question was, cant
Speaker 2: does this law apply to a Section nineteen eighty three claim.
Speaker 2: And there was some dispute about whether that's truly an
Speaker 2: exhaustion requirement or kind of or what it might be.
Speaker 2: But the Court characterizes it as an exhaustion requirement. Saying
Speaker 2: you have to kind of try an attempt to make
Speaker 2: peace with the defendant by giving a notice of claim
Speaker 2: and giving them an opportunity to settle and have discussions,
Speaker 2: and said, no, that exhaustion requirement doesn't work. It's again
Speaker 2: inconsistent with Section nineteen eighty three, therefore preempted, the state
Speaker 2: laws preempted, and courts can't apply that state law in
Speaker 2: section nineteen eighty three cases. And the petitioners here say
Speaker 2: this is even though it's up in jurisdictional garb, this
Speaker 2: is an exhaustion requirement. So it just falls within this
Speaker 2: Patsy Felder line of cases that just say Section nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty three can't have an exhaustion requirement. Their narrower argument is, well,
Speaker 2: this particular exhaustion requirement, even if maybe it can apply
Speaker 2: in some instances, maybe we can at least force them
Speaker 2: to go to the administrative body, the state administrative body,
Speaker 2: in some cases, it can't apply to these types of
Speaker 2: claims because these claims are challenging the process that they
Speaker 2: have to exhaust, and so it doesn't really work, and
Speaker 2: so we should just carve out these types of claims
Speaker 2: if we were actually claiming that they had made a
Speaker 2: wrong decision. We got all the way through the appeals
Speaker 2: and they'd made a wrong decision that violates the Social
Speaker 2: Security as Act or some other federal provision, then maybe
Speaker 2: we have to exhaust right, Maybe we can't just say
Speaker 2: that in the initial determination before we appeal violates my
Speaker 2: federal rights. But here we're just challenging the process. We
Speaker 2: just want an order telling them to process our applications
Speaker 2: or give up me sufficient notice. We're not actually challenging
Speaker 2: the ultimate determinations. And so in that instance, this exhaustion
Speaker 2: requirement has to be preempted. Now, the state is arguing
Speaker 2: argues kind of against both of those arguments on a
Speaker 2: somewhat broad broad argument, but it kind of defeats both
Speaker 2: of those arguments, which they say, hey, this is different
Speaker 2: than an exhaustion than a typical exhaustion requirement. Although it
Speaker 2: hinges on whether you've exhausted, it deprives the court of jurisdiction,
Speaker 2: it doesn't mean that you lose. So the state says,
Speaker 2: in a normal exhaustion case, a plaintiff sues hasn't exhausted
Speaker 2: and if the time has run by which they can't
Speaker 2: exhaust or or depending on the exact exhaustion rule. Then
Speaker 2: they lose on the merits, they get a dismissal with prejudice.
Speaker 2: They can't come back. It's over that they're done. Sometimes,
Speaker 2: you know, courts will stay the case so that they
Speaker 2: can go back and exhaust But that's but the point
Speaker 2: is is that it operates on the merits. The court
Speaker 2: has chosen to hear the case and decides the case
Speaker 2: on exhaustion grounds. They say, here this is different the
Speaker 2: Alabama Supreme Court. The Alabama courts just rejected this at
Speaker 2: the jurisdictional stage, and the plaintiffs can still go to
Speaker 2: federal court or at least arguably can maybe with some
Speaker 2: statute of limitations complications. But they're saying that this is
Speaker 2: not us adjudicating the claim and imposing an exhaustion requirement.
Speaker 2: This is just the state deciding what's the scope of
Speaker 2: state court jurisdiction. And state courts always have jurisdictional rules, right,
Speaker 2: they say, small claims court can only handle these types
Speaker 2: of quick cases, you know, maybe circuit court or trial
Speaker 2: court or whatever it might be. We can always define
Speaker 2: our jurisdiction. And so that defeats both the petitioners broad
Speaker 2: argument that this is an exhaustion requirement and therefore falls
Speaker 2: with an Patsy and Felder and also the narrow argument,
Speaker 2: which says, maybe this is a bad idea, but it
Speaker 2: just leaves you to go to the federal court and
Speaker 2: that's just fine. We're just defining our jurisdiction. And so
Speaker 2: these are the types of arguments that are going on,
Speaker 2: which is do we properly view this as kind of
Speaker 2: an exhaustion requirement or is this just a run of
Speaker 2: the mill jurisdictional requirement that we generally think state courts
Speaker 2: can define their jurisdiction And it's it's not. It's it's
Speaker 2: not a matter of federal concern. If a state court
Speaker 2: just doesn't have as much jurisdiction as they might otherwise.
Speaker 1: Have, great, And I guess that since you went into
Speaker 1: into that distinction a little bit more on the arguments
Speaker 1: would now be a good time to go into the
Speaker 1: decisions and see how how it all all came out.
Speaker 1: It was a five to four decision, Uh, and uh,
Speaker 1: it wasn't on ideological lines at all. It seemed like,
Speaker 1: so can you go over the majority opinion the reasoning
Speaker 1: behind it, and.
Speaker 2: Then we'll go to the descent Yeah, So the decision
Speaker 2: is five to four, as you mentioned, and Justice Kavanaugh
Speaker 2: writes he's joined by Chief Justice Roberts, Justice sodamor, Justice Kagan,
Speaker 2: and Justice Jackson. And so we'll talk about the descent
Speaker 2: in a minute, which is somewhat divided. But does Kevanaugh
Speaker 2: does not reach the broader argument. I think he says
Speaker 2: a couple of times that it's the ground that they
Speaker 2: reach is narrow, tries to emphasize the narrowness of the decision,
Speaker 2: drops a footnote saying we're not addressing the Patsy Felder argument.
Speaker 2: So this is really it's really narrow. And so there's
Speaker 2: a line, you know, in the opening paragraph that kind
Speaker 2: of summarizes exactly where Justice Kavanaugh gets, which says, because
Speaker 2: the claimants cannot sue until they complete the administrative process,
Speaker 2: they can never sue under section nineteen eighty three to
Speaker 2: obtain an order expediting the administrative process. Okay, so the
Speaker 2: major opinions somewhat sets aside the insufficient notice question. I
Speaker 2: didn't see the majority of picion separating that out, but
Speaker 2: at the very least it's enough to reverse the Supreme
Speaker 2: Court of Alabama saying when when a plaintiff in this
Speaker 2: type of instance is trying to challenge the delays in
Speaker 2: the process. It's kind of a never ending loop that
Speaker 2: they can never actually come to state court because they
Speaker 2: aren't getting a decision, so they cannot exhaust and the
Speaker 2: whole and what their claim is is not this decision
Speaker 2: was wrong, but we were in permissively being denied a decision.
Speaker 2: And so that is kind of where the court where
Speaker 2: the court falls and addresses this what it claims to
Speaker 2: be a narrow a narrow holding. And yet but yet
Speaker 2: some of the reasoning might might extend a little bit
Speaker 2: further than the majority might imagine. And that's something that
Speaker 2: the scent says. Great.
Speaker 1: And then I guess, as you said that the scent
Speaker 1: was split just as Tom wrote, wrote the dissenting opinion,
Speaker 1: but Justice Alito, a Justice Coursic, and Justice Parrott only
Speaker 1: joined in Part two. And then you you were cited
Speaker 1: in the dissenting opinion. So if you can just touch
Speaker 1: on the dissenting opinion as a whole, and then also
Speaker 1: your your citation that was in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so thinks and I think so Part one, Justice
Speaker 2: Thomas reiterates his view about how he views kind of
Speaker 2: the role of state jurisdictional limitations. And this comes back
Speaker 2: to a decision Heywood be Drowned from two thousand and
Speaker 2: nine that involved a state law, also involving Section nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty three, and so in order to kind of understand
Speaker 2: where he's coming from and where the argument with the
Speaker 2: majority is, we need to understand Heywood just a little bit.
Speaker 2: So before Heywood, we had a had a rule, or
Speaker 2: at least people understood there to be a rule that
Speaker 2: as long as the state law that prohibited state courts
Speaker 2: from a duiccating a federal claim, as long as it
Speaker 2: was a neutral rule of judicial administration, then it was okay.
Speaker 2: And we understood judicial administration to be mean. It needs
Speaker 2: to be jurisdictional, meaning we're not actually reaching the merits,
Speaker 2: we're not hearing the claim, and then saying no federal
Speaker 2: law applies to this claim. It's it's it's jurisdictional is
Speaker 2: about administration and neutral means it needs to divide. It
Speaker 2: needs to kind of coverable state and federal claims. Not
Speaker 2: it can't target the federal claim. It can't say our
Speaker 2: jurisdiction just doesn't extend any federal claims. Justice Thomas in
Speaker 2: Heywood and argues that actually, this discrimination rule, the idea
Speaker 2: of neutral doesn't isn't rooted in the Constitution, right, So
Speaker 2: he makes the argument that Article three, by allowing Congress
Speaker 2: to create lower federal courts, was recognizing that state courts
Speaker 2: might not hear all federal claims and that we might
Speaker 2: need lower federal courts. Also says that the supremacy clause
Speaker 2: just talks about laws that conflict, but a law that
Speaker 2: just restricts jurisdiction doesn't actually conflict with a substantive law
Speaker 2: that governs kind of what the rights and obligations of
Speaker 2: the parties are. So he also was alone and a
Speaker 2: sole dissenter. Heywood v. Drown was also a five to
Speaker 2: four decision at the time. It was Justice Galia, Chief
Speaker 2: Justice Roberts, and Justice Alito who joined Justice Thomas on
Speaker 2: the other part. But he was alone there, and he
Speaker 2: reiterates his argument in part one that actually there's no
Speaker 2: discrimination nondiscrimination requirement at all when it comes to state
Speaker 2: courts hearing federal claims. And then so then I'll get
Speaker 2: back to kind of what Haywood did. And this is
Speaker 2: where the dissenters in williams Our case today come back
Speaker 2: into the play. But Justice Thomas reiterates this and says,
Speaker 2: as long as it's jurisdictional, and he defines jurisdictional by
Speaker 2: meaning it's dismissed without prejudice, meaning the state courts just
Speaker 2: won't hear the claim. You can always go to federal
Speaker 2: court later, but just you can't hear it. He says,
Speaker 2: as long as it's it's actually jurisdictional. And I agree,
Speaker 2: He says, I agree that you know it can't just
Speaker 2: be nominally jurisdictional, it actually has to be jurisdictional. Then
Speaker 2: we shouldn't care about this. And because the Alabama law
Speaker 2: here about exhaustion is jurisdictional, we shouldn't care. Then, as
Speaker 2: you mentioned, he drops a footnote because that goes even
Speaker 2: further and says, well, we should actually reconsider two of
Speaker 2: our additional line of cases, at least might need to
Speaker 2: reconsider them. One is that there's even a due process
Speaker 2: problem here. So the reason why there's a due process
Speaker 2: problem is that we have a case named Gold v. Kelly,
Speaker 2: and then a line of cases including Matthews v. Eldridge
Speaker 2: and others, that say, sometimes government benefits or entitlements are
Speaker 2: property within the meaning of the due process clause. It
Speaker 2: says no state shell or in the or in the
Speaker 2: Fifth Amendment, that you know, the government shall not deprive
Speaker 2: any person of life, liberty, and property withou due process
Speaker 2: of law. And just as Thomas says, I think historically
Speaker 2: kind of government that ifits in entitlements were probably not property,
Speaker 2: you didn't have a right to them until you actually
Speaker 2: kind of received them and took a property interest in
Speaker 2: the money. And so in this case that would obviously
Speaker 2: defeat kind of the Section nineteen eighty three claim. And
Speaker 2: then he says, we also might need to reconsider whether
Speaker 2: Section nineteen eighty three is kind of a standalone cause
Speaker 2: of action or whether it gives federal courts jurisdiction over
Speaker 2: certain state law causes of action that implicate federal rights.
Speaker 2: And this is where he cites one of my papers.
Speaker 2: I argue that, as originally understood, section nineteen eighty three
Speaker 2: was not a standalone federal cause of action that gave
Speaker 2: kind of a new and unique individual right to come
Speaker 2: to federal court. What it did was it codified these
Speaker 2: the federal rights, which was needed to establish out a
Speaker 2: question jurisdiction. But then it allowed plaintiffs to bring whatever
Speaker 2: their state law claims were into federal court if those
Speaker 2: state law claims were seeking to vindicate a federal right.
Speaker 2: And that's mostly you know, most of that understanding is
Speaker 2: done by the backdrop, where before nineteen thirty eight, the
Speaker 2: causes of action and actions at law were derived from
Speaker 2: from state law. As a matter of statute, Congress required
Speaker 2: federal courts to look to state law to know which
Speaker 2: causes of action or in that case the forms of
Speaker 2: action historically would be used. But also kind of the
Speaker 2: fact that this section is very simple just says you
Speaker 2: can sue the defendants shall be liable in an action
Speaker 2: at law, and what action of law we don't know,
Speaker 2: but Justice Thomas says we should reconsider that, in which case,
Speaker 2: again section nineteen eighty three, there is no kind of
Speaker 2: standalone claim. You'd have to go to state law. And
Speaker 2: if state lawer card is exhaustion, then state law RECRD
Speaker 2: is exhaustion a state law cause of action. So you
Speaker 2: can't bring it in federal court or in state court
Speaker 2: because Section nine ten ey three doesn't provide that independent
Speaker 2: cause of action. So now we get back to part two,
Speaker 2: where the dissenters join right, And now we have Haywood.
Speaker 2: So what does Haywood say. Haywood is is not it is,
Speaker 2: it's a it's a clear opinion, but it's unclear kind
Speaker 2: of which line of reasoning is doing the work. So
Speaker 2: Haywood is a case from New York where New York
Speaker 2: says state courts no longer have jurisdiction over any claim
Speaker 2: for damages again by prisoners against prison officials. That includes
Speaker 2: state law claims, that includes federal law claims. So the
Speaker 2: four justice descent in in Haywood says, now, again, this
Speaker 2: is a narrower view than just Thomas's broader view that
Speaker 2: this is as long as it's purely jurisdictional. But they say, well,
Speaker 2: this is neutral in that sense. Then it covers state
Speaker 2: law claims, and it covers federal law claims. And New
Speaker 2: York is New York. State courts are not obligated to
Speaker 2: hear a certain type of claim just because Congress wants,
Speaker 2: just because Congress has enacted a lot that effects rights
Speaker 2: and obligations. And the majority says, no, that's not enough,
Speaker 2: it's not enough just to be non discriminatory. And yet
Speaker 2: it kind of has three lines of argument at least
Speaker 2: how I read it that it's unclear which one's doing
Speaker 2: the work. Do you need all three? Which are they
Speaker 2: all three independent? So the first one, although it says
Speaker 2: non discrimination is not enough to be neutral, it then
Speaker 2: kind of says, well, maybe this isn't really neutral because
Speaker 2: it's not about all Section nineteen eighty three claims. It's
Speaker 2: not about all defendants because it's only prison officials. And
Speaker 2: it's really not even about all types of claims against
Speaker 2: prison officials because you could bring equitable claims for injunctions
Speaker 2: or another or other type of equitable relief. So really
Speaker 2: it's kind of jerrymandering that certain type type of claim.
Speaker 2: And yes, it includes any state law claims that happened
Speaker 2: to come within that jerrymander, but really, kind of we
Speaker 2: know what they're doing, right, The state law claims aren't
Speaker 2: doing a lot of work there. It's really Section nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty three that allows kind of this claim to proceed
Speaker 2: and then requires state courts to apply federal law authorizes attorneys, fees,
Speaker 2: all types of benefits to bring in Section nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: three claim and the court seems to say, well, this
Speaker 2: is two gerrymanders. But then in another analysis, the court says, well, really,
Speaker 2: this kind of just works as an immunity statute clothed
Speaker 2: in jurisdictional garb, which is kind of saying, if there's
Speaker 2: a certain type of claim that just can't be brought,
Speaker 2: then then we're we're going to be really hesitant.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: That just seems like the court the state is undermining
Speaker 2: federal law as a matter of effects. Right, It's just
Speaker 2: it's saying that this type of claim can't be brought.
Speaker 2: A Section nineteen eighty three allows this type of claim,
Speaker 2: and so therefore it can't be brought. And then the
Speaker 2: court also says, well, this is a unique case because
Speaker 2: New York, both in the litigation and the legislature, had
Speaker 2: said pretty explicitly, the reason why we have this rule
Speaker 2: is because we think most claims by prisoners for damages
Speaker 2: are frivolous and they waste the prison officials times and
Speaker 2: they waste the court's times. And so the court in
Speaker 2: Heywood says, well, we don't like when this is a
Speaker 2: jurisdictional rule that is based on policy disagreement with Congress,
Speaker 2: and in that sense, it's preempted. And so we had
Speaker 2: kind of multiple lines of reasoning, and it's unclear. So
Speaker 2: let's go through those and see how the Alabama law fairs. Right,
Speaker 2: that's kind of how the dissent kind of goes about it.
Speaker 2: So on the first which says, this isn't really that neutral.
Speaker 2: You know, maybe it's less gerrymandered than the New York law. Right,
Speaker 2: it just applies to all, you know, claims that have
Speaker 2: to do with benefits, and so it's maybe a little
Speaker 2: less jerrymandered. But the petitioners didn't make the argument that
Speaker 2: it was that it only really applied to government officials
Speaker 2: and only applied to a small subset of Section nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty three claims, so maybe it's not as neutral, right.
Speaker 2: Heywood also said, when we're thinking about what's the purpose
Speaker 2: of jurisdictional rules that we think aren't kind of trying
Speaker 2: to be jerrymandered, we think about it as competence over
Speaker 2: the subject matter and power over the person. So, you know,
Speaker 2: the petitioners here argue, well, it's really not about either
Speaker 2: of those because they can eventually hear these claims, so
Speaker 2: they must have competence over the subject matter and the person.
Speaker 2: It's an Alabama resident and an Alabama official. There's no
Speaker 2: concern there. The descent tries to say, well, actually, this
Speaker 2: is about concern about the subject matter. This is a
Speaker 2: specialized administrative process that courts don't know a lot about,
Speaker 2: and exhaustion helps develop the record and get to hear
Speaker 2: kind of the expertise is evaluation of the evidence before
Speaker 2: we actually get there. Now that that rebuttal does a
Speaker 2: lot of work for why there is and it's such
Speaker 2: an exhaustion requirement, it's unclear what on a narrower argument,
Speaker 2: why that would apply to do process violations due to
Speaker 2: delay in that process. Right, Are the employees at the
Speaker 2: Department of Labor really good about knowing why there might
Speaker 2: be a delay and whether that's a due process violation?
Speaker 2: Maybe not, but it does justify why they have the
Speaker 2: jurisdictional rule to begin with. The second one, which talks
Speaker 2: about the effects, is the one that the majority latches onto.
Speaker 2: So the majority says, as as I mentioned in the
Speaker 2: opening paragraph, because these claims can now never be broughted
Speaker 2: because you can't exhaust a claim that you're not processing
Speaker 2: my attempts to exhaust. As a matter of an effect,
Speaker 2: it effectually prohibits these claims from ever being brought right,
Speaker 2: And it really kind of rests on a few quote
Speaker 2: out of Heywood that support that, and the Descent says
Speaker 2: that was never really a different line of reasoning if
Speaker 2: you actually understand where those quotes came from. They were
Speaker 2: really all about the purpose. They were saying New York
Speaker 2: had a policy of disagreement, and it expressed that policy
Speaker 2: disagreement by effectually prohibiting these claims from coming. And so
Speaker 2: the Descent says, there is no evidence of purpose here, right,
Speaker 2: there's no evidence that section nineteen eighty three claims were barred.
Speaker 2: Section nineteen eighty three claims are a very very small
Speaker 2: portion of claims that are going to arise out of
Speaker 2: these benefits determinations. Most of them are going to be
Speaker 2: under state law or maybe under some kind of federal law.
Speaker 2: But those don't always have to be brought under section
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty three. And so the descend says, well, this
Speaker 2: is all about purpose, and this is neutral, and therefore
Speaker 2: we should we should let Alabama define the scope of
Speaker 2: its courts jurisdictions, or if it's court's jurisdiction and the
Speaker 2: majority was just as Kavanaugh says, no, in a effect,
Speaker 2: this prevents a certain species of claim from being brought
Speaker 2: and that's what Heywood was really targeting, was saying, even
Speaker 2: if it's jurisdictional and truly jurisdictional, if its effect is
Speaker 2: to prohibit a species of claim from being able to
Speaker 2: be brought in state court, then it's preempted. And that's
Speaker 2: where the majority lands.
Speaker 1: Great, I mean, really great job summarizing all the different
Speaker 1: aspects apply it in these opinions. Can you just touch
Speaker 1: a little a little bit on what you see as
Speaker 1: the consequences going forward for these types of claims? You
Speaker 1: know now that now that the case has been decided.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I, as I mentioned before, Justice Kavanaught really
Speaker 2: tries to emphasize the the narrowness of the opinion, saying
Speaker 2: it's it's really just about jurisdictional requirements that require that
Speaker 2: in turn require exhaustion of a claim that really can't
Speaker 2: be exhausted because it's kind of a never ending circle.
Speaker 2: Justice Barrett asks this in oral argument, said, well, what
Speaker 2: happens if what happens if they go back and they
Speaker 2: submit a letter saying your delay is violating the Social
Speaker 2: Security Act and the due process claim? And I want
Speaker 2: to kind of exhaust that. Well, one answer is the
Speaker 2: Department of Labor. The state Department of Labor gets that
Speaker 2: letter and says, oh, you're right, we need to process
Speaker 2: your claim. Let's process your claim. In which case everyone's good.
Speaker 2: We got what we wanted anyway, because the end all
Speaker 2: the plaintiffs were seeking was an injunction compelling a decision.
Speaker 2: We get a decision. But what if they in turn
Speaker 2: sit on that letter just like they were sitting on
Speaker 2: the initial application. Then have they exhausted? Have they not right?
Speaker 2: The descent says, well, actually, Alabama law represent has a
Speaker 2: futility exception, so it does not prevent these from being
Speaker 2: brought at all. Once you give this Department of Labor
Speaker 2: a reasonable amount of time, then you can say exhaustion
Speaker 2: is futile. Therefore I can properly bring my claim that's
Speaker 2: not raised squarely in the case. And the majority kind
Speaker 2: of just dismisses that. But once we get beyond that,
Speaker 2: we have The descent says, kind of, the reasoning here
Speaker 2: is going to have great ripple effects, and the majority responds.
Speaker 2: The last substance of paragraph says, the descent further says,
Speaker 2: our opinion may have ripple effects, quoting the descent, but
Speaker 2: as we have emphasized our opinion today is narrow. It
Speaker 2: resolves this dispute, but it is careful not to go
Speaker 2: beyond this court's existing precedence. Okay, So, according to the majority,
Speaker 2: it's saying, this is just a simple application of Heywood,
Speaker 2: it's a really narrow it's just these types of these
Speaker 2: specific types of claims that are barred jurisdictionally barred by
Speaker 2: an exhaustion requirement, and there's there's nothing else. Now, the
Speaker 2: descent says, Okay, you can say that over and over again.
Speaker 2: But if your rule is it effectively prohibits a species
Speaker 2: of claim from being brought, all the work is going
Speaker 2: to be done in defining what's the species of claim.
Speaker 2: So let's say state courts say, or the state legislature says,
Speaker 2: state courts are not very good at adjudicating civil rights claims.
Speaker 2: We just don't think that they're very good for whatever reason. Right. So,
Speaker 2: but the purpose of this hypothetical is it's a concern
Speaker 2: about competence over the subject matter. And so we're going
Speaker 2: to take out all civil rights claims, not federal claims.
Speaker 2: Not all federal claims. It includes some federal claims can
Speaker 2: still last as long as they're not civil rights claims
Speaker 2: and all civil rights state and federal right. So it's neutral.
Speaker 2: This is about the competence of the court. It's jurisdictional.
Speaker 2: They dismissed without prejudice. You can always go to federal
Speaker 2: court for these cases. What happens then, and let's put
Speaker 2: aside the constitutionality, because maybe they can't prohibit state courts
Speaker 2: from hearing state civil rights cases. But let's put that
Speaker 2: aside in some in this this rule, this law would
Speaker 2: categorically bar a species of federal claim from being brought
Speaker 2: any Section nineteen eighty three claim period. Now is that allowed? Now?
Speaker 2: Is that now carve out to the idea that it's
Speaker 2: a neutral rule of judicial administration when and we're going
Speaker 2: to second guess whether it's really neutral by looking at
Speaker 2: whether it has affects the competence of the court or
Speaker 2: the court's power over the people. Maybe maybe not. That's obviously,
Speaker 2: you know, a the kind of the end of the
Speaker 2: run hypothetical. But let's move it back a little bit
Speaker 2: to what happens if it's certain types of police encounters
Speaker 2: state and federal. Does that count? What happens if it's
Speaker 2: certain types of administrative law claims okay, where the court's
Speaker 2: just the legislature just says state courts aren't very good
Speaker 2: administrative law claims. Does this effectively? Does? Is with tho?
Speaker 2: Those types of rules effectively foreclosed a species of federal
Speaker 2: claim from being brought in state court. Maybe maybe not,
Speaker 2: but that's where all the work is going to be
Speaker 2: going forward. And now, you know, having said that, even
Speaker 2: if the court interprets that claim very very broadly, there
Speaker 2: just aren't very many of these cases, right. I mean,
Speaker 2: we have Heywood that comes down in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 2: This is the first case the Supreme Court has gone
Speaker 2: since then. There are other ones that have floated around
Speaker 2: the server courts. But it's unclear to me whether this
Speaker 2: is a big area of litigation, right. Are there lots
Speaker 2: of state laws that don't clearly fall on one side
Speaker 2: or the other. I'm not sure. Maybe state courts are
Speaker 2: going to be less adventurous and trying because of this decision,
Speaker 2: but I'm not sure that they were beforehand either. And so,
Speaker 2: as far as you know practical effects on a broader scale,
Speaker 2: not sure how much this does. But as far as
Speaker 2: within this narrow world of Section nineteen eighty three claims
Speaker 2: in state court. You know, depend it depends on how
Speaker 2: we interpret the majority's rule. It's clear what the majority
Speaker 2: of saying. There are certain types of narrow claims that
Speaker 2: you know, a particular species of narrow claims that you
Speaker 2: can't a state court can't effectively prohibit from coming to
Speaker 2: state court. And yet we don't know almost anything about
Speaker 2: where that line is. We have a couple of examples
Speaker 2: in Heywood and now Williams. So you read, but we're
Speaker 2: left with some unanswered questions that again because of the
Speaker 2: background of this, maybe we don't ever actually see answered,
Speaker 2: because this isn't really an area where state courts are
Speaker 2: pushing the boundaries. Right. Well, thank you so much for
Speaker 2: joining us, Tyler. It's always great to see great Thank you,
Speaker 2: I appreciate it.
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