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The Arizona Ruling

NYT coverage here and Judge Bolton's opinion is here.  What really caught my eye was a line in the NYT report that legal experts think this ruling is headed for the Supreme Court.  Maybe I misread it, and they meant the case is headed to the SCOTUS, but I think they meant appeal of this ruling will end up in the SCOTUS.  With all due respect to these legal experts, I beg to differ. 

I managed to glance through Judge Bolton's opinion and she applied the correct four-step analysis for a preliminary injunction mandated by the Supreme Court.  For the uninitiated, in the past five years or so (give or take), the Supreme Court has been taking care to rigidly define the factors that courts must consider when granting equitable relief, in particular when granting injunctions.  These cases are often at the expense of the Ninth Circuit, the most recent example being the United States Navy Sonar case. 

With that in mind, and with my assumption that the Judge correctly applied the standard articulated by the Supreme Court, the Ninth Circuit will not reverse (and invite yet another Supreme Court review of its preliminary injunction jurisprudence).  Similarly, when the issue at this juncture is the application of the relevant equitable factors, there is no way the SCOTUS grants cert. 

Obviously this is a hot-button issue with lots of opinions that go beyond the relatively boring area of preliminary injunctions.  So consider this an open forum.

Full post as published by Nuts & Boalts on July 28, 2010 (boomark / email).