She was involved in a few cases thus far but today wrote her first opinion.
Justice Scalia sided with the debtor here, splitting with Thomas and the other conservatives. It fell down to a textual interpretation that is best left to experts. Note how his views do not always, stereotypes aside, come down one way or the other or even agree with Justice Thomas. OTOH, the assumptions don't come out of thin air either. It is interesting though that he cited a House of Lords opinion to serve as an example of a canon of textual interpretation.
He added: "This has always been understood." As with the common rejoinder by comments "you are mistaken" or "you misunderstand," what "has always been understood" (it's so obvious!) clearly is open to debate here. Scalia is actually a bit toned down here. "It seems to me that is the situation here." Seems to? Downright reasonable there, Scalia.
Orin Kerr* noted:
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* Prof. Kerr, who advised Sen. Cornyn during the Sotomayor nomination, provides interesting commentary as a self-professed "conservative lawyer."
Held: A debtor who does not make loan or lease payments may not take the car-ownership deduction. [8-1, Scalia dissenting]As is the norm, the newbie was given a relatively uncontroversial opinion.
Justice Scalia sided with the debtor here, splitting with Thomas and the other conservatives. It fell down to a textual interpretation that is best left to experts. Note how his views do not always, stereotypes aside, come down one way or the other or even agree with Justice Thomas. OTOH, the assumptions don't come out of thin air either. It is interesting though that he cited a House of Lords opinion to serve as an example of a canon of textual interpretation.
He added: "This has always been understood." As with the common rejoinder by comments "you are mistaken" or "you misunderstand," what "has always been understood" (it's so obvious!) clearly is open to debate here. Scalia is actually a bit toned down here. "It seems to me that is the situation here." Seems to? Downright reasonable there, Scalia.
Orin Kerr* noted:
It’s a pretty technical bankruptcy case. It struck me as well-written and clear for an opinion on such a complicated topic — you can pretty much follow the opinion on a quick read, which isn’t always the case with technical legal areas like this — but having no understanding of bankruptcy law, I’ll leave to others how persuasive the opinion is on the merits.One comment on Scalia's reference is also notable:
Yah, that was very weak. If I’m trying to show that a supposed rule about verbose language has “always been understood,” then I need to do better than (1) a single 1942 case (2) from the UK (3) that concerns boilerplate language, not a term that may be “verbose” but is certainly not legalese like “in addition to but not in derogation of.”Selective citation of history alone only takes you so far. It is part of a wider balance of factors. Some comments suggested Scalia might have been correct as to the result. Don't know. I think the 8-1 ruling suggests otherwise. Either way, his example is telling.
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* Prof. Kerr, who advised Sen. Cornyn during the Sotomayor nomination, provides interesting commentary as a self-professed "conservative lawyer."