- May 20, 2009
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Laurie Symczyk got her Genesis HealthCare Corp. v. Symczyk, all the way to SCOTUS. She settled with her employer but she was suing for her imaginary friends and Thomas wrote the majority.
"In the absence of any claimants opting in, respondents suit became moot when her individual claim became moot, because she lacked any personal interest in representing others in this action. While the FLSA authorizes an aggrieved employee to bring an action on behalf of himself and other employees similarly situated, the mere presence of collective-action allegations in the complaint cannot save the suit from mootness once the individual claim is satisfied."
In dissent, Elain Kagan removes all doubt that the only reason she's on SCOTUS was not for her legal insight, but for her covering for Obama's dubious tenure as "President" of Harvard Law, where he someone never learned Judicial Review.
"The Court today resolves an imaginary question, based on a mistake the courts below made about this case and others like it. The issue here, the majority tells us, is whether a collective action brought under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) is justiciable when the lone plaintiffs individual claim becomes moot. Embedded within that question is a crucial premise: that the individual claim has become moot, as the lower courts held and the majority assumes without deciding. But what if that premise is bogus? What if the plaintiffs individual claim here never became moot? And what if, in addition, no similar claim for damages will ever become moot? In that event, the majoritys decisionfounded as it is on an unfounded assumptionwould have no real-world meaning or application. The decision would turn out to be the most one-off of one-offs, explaining only what (the majority thinks) should happen to a proposed collective FLSA action when something that in fact never happens to an individual FLSA claim is errantly thought to have done so. That is the case here, for reasons Ill describe. Feel free to relegate the majoritys decision to the furthest reaches of your mind: The situation it addresses should never again arise."
The AntiConstitutionalist (Kagan, the Wise Latina, Ginsberg and whatshisnam) have 4 solid votes, we won't survive as a nation if they get a fifth
"In the absence of any claimants opting in, respondents suit became moot when her individual claim became moot, because she lacked any personal interest in representing others in this action. While the FLSA authorizes an aggrieved employee to bring an action on behalf of himself and other employees similarly situated, the mere presence of collective-action allegations in the complaint cannot save the suit from mootness once the individual claim is satisfied."
In dissent, Elain Kagan removes all doubt that the only reason she's on SCOTUS was not for her legal insight, but for her covering for Obama's dubious tenure as "President" of Harvard Law, where he someone never learned Judicial Review.
"The Court today resolves an imaginary question, based on a mistake the courts below made about this case and others like it. The issue here, the majority tells us, is whether a collective action brought under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) is justiciable when the lone plaintiffs individual claim becomes moot. Embedded within that question is a crucial premise: that the individual claim has become moot, as the lower courts held and the majority assumes without deciding. But what if that premise is bogus? What if the plaintiffs individual claim here never became moot? And what if, in addition, no similar claim for damages will ever become moot? In that event, the majoritys decisionfounded as it is on an unfounded assumptionwould have no real-world meaning or application. The decision would turn out to be the most one-off of one-offs, explaining only what (the majority thinks) should happen to a proposed collective FLSA action when something that in fact never happens to an individual FLSA claim is errantly thought to have done so. That is the case here, for reasons Ill describe. Feel free to relegate the majoritys decision to the furthest reaches of your mind: The situation it addresses should never again arise."
The AntiConstitutionalist (Kagan, the Wise Latina, Ginsberg and whatshisnam) have 4 solid votes, we won't survive as a nation if they get a fifth
