The Jurisprudence of Justice Amy Coney Barrett

FS Credit Opportunities Corp. v. Saba Capital Master Fund, Ltd.

Question Presented: Whether Section 47(b) of the ICA, 15 U.S.C. § 80a-46(b), creates an implied private right of action.

Holding: Section 47(b) of the Investment Company Act does not impliedly empower private parties to sue for rescission of contracts that allegedly violate the act.

Rutherford v. United States

Question Presented: Whether the sentencing disparity created by Congress's nonretroactive change to §924(c)'s mandatory penalties can serve as an “extraordinary and compelling reaso[n]” that “warrant[s]” a reduction. §3582(c)(1)(A)(i).

Holding: When Congress declines to make a sentencing amendment retroactive—as with the change to §924(c)—the resulting sentencing disparity cannot serve as an “extraordinary and compelling” reason that warrants a sentence reduction under 18 U. S. C. §3582(c)(1)(A)(i).

Fernandez v. United States

Question Presented: Whether doubts about a conviction's validity qualify as “extraordinary and compelling” reasons for relief under the compassionate relief statute.

Holding: A prisoner who collaterally attacks the validity of his conviction must proceed through 28 U. S. C. §2255, not 18 U. S. C. §3582; the supposed invalidity of a conviction is not among the “extraordinary and compelling reasons” that justify compassionate release.

Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC

Question Presented: Whether a federal statute, 49 U.S.C. § 14501(c), preempts a state common-law claim against a broker for negligently selecting a motor carrier or driver.

Holding: A claim that one company negligently hired another to transport goods is not preempted by the FAAAA because States retain authority to regulate safety “with respect to motor vehicles” under the Act.

Berk v. Choy

Question Presented: Whether Delaware's “affidavit of merit” requirement for medical-malpractice suits—mandating that a qualified medical expert's affidavit accompany the complaint—applies in federal court when the suit is brought under diversity jurisdiction.

Holding: The Delaware affidavit-of-merit requirement does not apply in federal court because it conflicts with a valid Federal Rule of Civil Procedure. Speaking for seven other justices, Justice Barrett wrote that the Court could bypass “Erie’s murky waters” because, here, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8 directly displaces the Delaware state law in question.

Bost v. Illinois Bd. of Elections

Question Presented: Whether a candidate for federal office has Article III standing to challenge a state's rules for counting mail-in ballots—specifically, Illinois's requirement that ballots postmarked by Election Day but received up to two weeks later must be counted.

Holding: A candidate does have standing to challenge the rules governing the counting of votes in their own election.

Barrett's View: Justice Barrett (joined by Justice Kagan) would have held that Congressman Bost had standing because he has sustained a traditional pocketbook injury, not because of his status as a candidate for political office. Because, in her view, the majority created a “bespoke standing rule for candidates,” she concurred only in the judgment.

Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump

Question Presented: Whether IEEPA authorizes the President to impose tariffs.

Holding: IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs.

Barrett's View: Justice Barrett joined the majority in full but wrote separately to respond to Justice Gorsuch's concurring opinion advancing his view of the major questions doctrine. She wrote that “while the major questions doctrine has an impressive pedigree as an interpretive principle, this Court has not (yet, anyway) embraced it as a strong-form rule that imposes a ‘clarity tax’ on Congress.”

Mirabelli v. Bonta

Question Presented: Whether to vacate a Court of Appeals order staying a permanent injunction entered by a District Court on behalf of parents who claim that California policies preventing schools from telling them about their children's efforts to engage in gender transitioning at school violate their rights under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Holding: The application to vacate the stay is granted as to the parent plaintiffs but is otherwise denied.

Barrett's View: Justice Barrett (joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh) responded to Justice Kagan's dissent criticizing the Court for relying on substantive due process after ostensibly jettisoning the doctrine in Dobbs. Justice Barrett wrote that Dobbs only concluded that the right to abortion was not fundamental under the Court's Glucksberg test, not that there are no substantive due process rights whatsoever. To the contrary, Justice Barrett wrote that the parent-plaintiffs were likely to prevail in this case because “the doctrine of substantive due process has long embraced a parent's right to raise her child, which includes the right to participate in significant decisions about her child's mental health.” For that proposition, she cited to Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925), Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923), and Parham v. J. R., 442 U.S. 584 (1979).

Hunter v. United States

Question Presented: First, whether the only permissible exceptions to a general appeal waiver are for claims of ineffective assistance of counsel or that the sentence exceeds the statutory maximum, and second, whether an appeal waiver applies when the sentencing judge advises the defendant that he has a right to appeal and the government does not object.

Holding: An agreement not to appeal a sentence is unenforceable when it would result in a miscarriage of justice—meaning, when it would leave in place the kind of egregious error that would bring the judicial system into disrepute.

Barrett's View: Justice Barrett wrote separately to note that while she is skeptical that the Supreme Court possesses an inherent, supervisory authority over inferior federal courts, the power at issue in this case concerns procedural common law. The former concerns narrow, discretionary rules; the latter involves doctrines, like preclusion and abstention, which are “settled by tradition or emergent consensus.”