Current SCOTUS Most Corporate Friendly Since 1945<

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May 18, 2013

The Corporate-Friendly Court

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There is little doubt, statistically, that the Supreme Court
presided over by Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. has been more
sympathetic to corporate interests than any court since World War
II. A comprehensive study of more than 1,750 decisions from 1946
to 2011, published recently in the Minnesota Law Review, found
that the Roberts court has repeatedly shielded business from
lawsuits involving class actions, workplace disputes and consumer
complaints. (The Times's Adam Liptak has reported about this and
related studies.)

There are few better (and more outrageous) examples of this pro-
business bias than Genesis HealthCare Corp. v. Symczyk. The
plaintiff, Laura Symczyk, a registered nurse at a Genesis nursing
home in Philadelphia, alleged that the company docked her and
others 30 minutes per shift for meal breaks, even when they
worked through the shift.

She sought damages under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Genesis
offered her $7,500 for unpaid wages and other costs, take-it-or-
leave-it within 10 days. She did not reply to the offer. Instead
she proceeded with a lawsuit, for herself and others similarly
situated in a collective action.

A Federal District Court ruled for Genesis, saying the company's
offer ended her claims. But the United States Court of Appeals
for the Third Circuit, while agreeing that the offer satisfied
her individual claim, said her collective action could go
forward. The Supreme Court held otherwise. Writing for a 5-to-4
majority, Justice Clarence Thomas declared, in so many words,
that when the individual claim for workplace violations was
dismissed, the collective action went out the window, too. The
dispute was basically about money, he said; Genesis' reasonable
offer had made Ms. Symczyk's claim moot and, in doing so, made
the whole case go away.

Justice Elena Kagan's critique of Justice Thomas's opinion is
remarkable for its withering scorn. The district court's decision
(and Justice Thomas's) served only to hustle Ms. Symczyk out of
the courthouse and sweep the broader workplace problem under the
rug. But, Justice Kagan argued, since Ms. Symczyk never accepted
the offer and never got any money, both her individual claim and
the collective claim attached to it continued. The mootness
issue, she suggested, was largely a figment of Justice Thomas's
imagination.

'The majority's decision is fit for nothing,' she said. 'Aside
from getting this case wrong, it serves only to address a make-
believe problem.'

Justice Kagan concludes that only the plaintiff here can decide
when she wants to end her lawsuit, not the corporation she is
battling. For Justice Thomas to say otherwise twists common sense
and legal principle into knots to give corporations the upper
hand over everyone else.


Copyright 2012 The New York Times Company

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