The Jurisprudence of Justice Amy Coney Barrett

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).