March 24, 2025 • 34 mins
On February 21, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court issued their 9-0 opinion in Williams v. Reed. The Court held that state courts may not deny those claims on failure-to-exhaust grounds when a state court’s application of a state exhaustion requirement in effect immunizes state officials from 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claims challenging delays in the administrative process.
Please join us in discussing the decision and its future implications.
Featuring:
Prof. Tyler Lindley, Associate Professor of Law, Brigham Young University J. Reuben Clark Law School
Please join us in discussing the decision and its future implications.
Featuring:
Prof. Tyler Lindley, Associate Professor of Law, Brigham Young University J. Reuben Clark Law School
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to scot Discast, a project of the Federalist Society
for Law and Public Policy Studies. Our contributors joined us
from around the country to bring you expert commentary on
US Supreme Court cases as they are argued and the
decisions are issued. The Federalist Society takes no position on
particular legal or public policy issues. All expressions are those
(00:23):
of the speaker. Hello, and welcome to scot Discast. I'm
your host, Kyle hammernis On, behalf of the Faculty division
of the Federalist Society. We are here today to discuss
Williams versus Reed, which was decided by the Supreme Court
in a five to four decision on February twenty first,
twenty twenty five. Is my honor to introduce our guest today,
(00:45):
Professor Tyler Linley. Professor Linley is an Associate professor of
law at the J. Rubin Clark Law School at Brigham
Young University. His research centers on the judicial, rural, and
historical evolution of the judiciary in America. He has extensively
examined published on judicial remedies, federal courts, constitutional law, and
administrative law. And with that, I'd like to hand things,
(01:06):
or to President Lee to get us started by talking
about how the case got to the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Thank you. So this case comes out of Alabama and
the plaintiffs are several more than twenty individuals in Alabama
who applied for unemployment benefits in the wake of the
COVID pandemic. As you might imagine, the Alabama Department of
Labor now the Department of Workforce, was overwhelmed by a
(01:36):
lot of the applications that came in in the years
following COVID. The plaintiffs had a mix of complaints about
the process for claiming Social Security or not Social Security sorry,
unemployment benefits. One was in the primary one was that
(01:57):
the Department of Labor, the Alabama departm of Labor, was
not even processing their claims, that many of these sat
for more than a year. Others argued that the notice
that the Department of Labor provided them about the ear
preliminary decisions that could be appealed within the Department of
Labor or insufficient. The Alabama Department of Labor has a
(02:22):
process that claimants need to go through. They submit an
initial claim that has an initial determination and the statute
requires that determination to be made promptly but doesn't provide
a deadline. Then once that determination is made, then the
claimant can appeal an adverse determination within the Department and
then eventually up to the Board of Appeals, which is
(02:46):
composed of members appointed by the governor. So this is
an intricate process. Now, Alabama also allows for eventual appeals
into courts of these determinations or challenges to the process,
but an Alabama statute limits the judicial jurisdiction of those
(03:06):
types of appeals. The statute essentially says that no circuit court,
the state Circuit Court, shall permit an appeal unless that
appeal has been exhausted through all of the administrative remedies,
so has to go through all of the appeal process
within the Department of Labor and then can come before
state court. So these plaintiffs are stuck in the administrative
(03:30):
process and they sue the Secretary of Labor, the Alabama
Secretary of Labor in state court under section nineteen eighty three,
which is a federal law. So this federal law, Section
nineteen eighty three is generally understood to provide a federal
cause of action for any violation by state officials of
(03:51):
an individual's constitutional or federal statutory rights. So these plaintiffs
say that the delays in the process or the sufficient
notice violate both the due process clause of the Constitution
and the Social Security Act, which kind of sets forth
the procedures that states have to follow in administering these benefits.
(04:12):
And so they go to state court saying, we want
the state court to issue an injunction against the Secretary
of Labor and the employees of the Secretary of Labor
ordering them to process these applications or, in the event
of the improper notice at the insufficient notice, to fix
(04:34):
the notice and allow an appeal. And so they want
an injunctive remedy, and the Alabama courts say, well, we
have an Alabama law that says all claims that come
out of this out of the Secretary of Labor at
kind of any benefits claims need to be exhausted before
we have jurisdiction. So we don't have jurisdiction. That goes
(04:55):
to the Alabama Supreme Court. The Supreme Court says we
don't have jurisdiction, and the petitioner's appeal saying no, No, No.
Section nineteen eighty three. This federal law that we're suing
under requires the states to hear this case preempts the
exhaustion jurisdiction rule. And we'll get into exactly whether it's
an exhaustion rule or whether it's a jurisdictional rule, but
(05:17):
preempts that and doesn't allow its application when it comes
to Section nineteen eighty three claims specifically.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Great, so the case gets to the Supreme Court, can
you talk a little bit about how each side argued
the case before we jump into the decision.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Yeah, so the petitioners hear, the plaintiffs, those who are
claiming unemployment benefits, had a broader and then a narrower argument,
And the broadest argument is that although this exhaustion requirement,
this requirement that the plaintiffs before going to state court
have to exhaust their administrative remedies before the secretary of labor,
(06:00):
that this exhaustion requirement is just categorically not allowed, even
if it's framed in jurisdictional terms. And so you have
a couple of cases that come beforehand that maybe kind
of give a little bit of color to this. One
is a case called Patsy that in which a federal
court had imposed an exhaustion requirement. Often exhaustion requirements are
(06:25):
kind of unlogged common law, may you know, judge made
And the Supreme Court says in Patsy, No. Section nineteen
eighty three does not have an exhaustion requirement, and an
exhaustion requirement is inconsistent with this scheme where plaintiffs get
to go directly to federal court and get damages or
(06:46):
equitable relief for violations of their federal rights, whether it
be constitutional or statutory. So we have that case, and
then we have a case called Felder that comes out
of Wisconsin. This is out of a state court and
the or at least out of a state law. And
in Felder, what happened was there's a state law requiring
(07:07):
a notice of the claim. Plaint just had to give
a notice of the claim to the defendants and then
let it sit for a certain amount of time before
they could bring a suit. And the question was, cant
does this law apply to a Section nineteen eighty three claim.
And there was some dispute about whether that's truly an
exhaustion requirement or kind of or what it might be.
But the Court characterizes it as an exhaustion requirement. Saying
(07:29):
you have to kind of try an attempt to make
peace with the defendant by giving a notice of claim
and giving them an opportunity to settle and have discussions,
and said, no, that exhaustion requirement doesn't work. It's again
inconsistent with Section nineteen eighty three, therefore preempted, the state
(07:50):
laws preempted, and courts can't apply that state law in
section nineteen eighty three cases. And the petitioners here say
this is even though it's up in jurisdictional garb, this
is an exhaustion requirement. So it just falls within this
Patsy Felder line of cases that just say Section nineteen
eighty three can't have an exhaustion requirement. Their narrower argument is, well,
(08:14):
this particular exhaustion requirement, even if maybe it can apply
in some instances, maybe we can at least force them
to go to the administrative body, the state administrative body,
in some cases, it can't apply to these types of
claims because these claims are challenging the process that they
(08:34):
have to exhaust, and so it doesn't really work, and
so we should just carve out these types of claims
if we were actually claiming that they had made a
wrong decision. We got all the way through the appeals
and they'd made a wrong decision that violates the Social
Security as Act or some other federal provision, then maybe
we have to exhaust right, Maybe we can't just say
(08:57):
that in the initial determination before we appeal violates my
federal rights. But here we're just challenging the process. We
just want an order telling them to process our applications
or give up me sufficient notice. We're not actually challenging
the ultimate determinations. And so in that instance, this exhaustion
requirement has to be preempted. Now, the state is arguing
(09:20):
argues kind of against both of those arguments on a
somewhat broad broad argument, but it kind of defeats both
of those arguments, which they say, hey, this is different
than an exhaustion than a typical exhaustion requirement. Although it
hinges on whether you've exhausted, it deprives the court of jurisdiction,
(09:41):
it doesn't mean that you lose. So the state says,
in a normal exhaustion case, a plaintiff sues hasn't exhausted
and if the time has run by which they can't
exhaust or or depending on the exact exhaustion rule. Then
they lose on the merits, they get a dismissal with prejudice.
They can't come back. It's over that they're done. Sometimes,
(10:05):
you know, courts will stay the case so that they
can go back and exhaust But that's but the point
is is that it operates on the merits. The court
has chosen to hear the case and decides the case
on exhaustion grounds. They say, here this is different the
Alabama Supreme Court. The Alabama courts just rejected this at
the jurisdictional stage, and the plaintiffs can still go to
(10:25):
federal court or at least arguably can maybe with some
statute of limitations complications. But they're saying that this is
not us adjudicating the claim and imposing an exhaustion requirement.
This is just the state deciding what's the scope of
state court jurisdiction. And state courts always have jurisdictional rules, right,
they say, small claims court can only handle these types
(10:47):
of quick cases, you know, maybe circuit court or trial
court or whatever it might be. We can always define
our jurisdiction. And so that defeats both the petitioners broad
argument that this is an exhaustion requirement and therefore falls
with an Patsy and Felder and also the narrow argument,
which says, maybe this is a bad idea, but it
just leaves you to go to the federal court and
(11:08):
that's just fine. We're just defining our jurisdiction. And so
these are the types of arguments that are going on,
which is do we properly view this as kind of
an exhaustion requirement or is this just a run of
the mill jurisdictional requirement that we generally think state courts
can define their jurisdiction And it's it's not. It's it's
(11:28):
not a matter of federal concern. If a state court
just doesn't have as much jurisdiction as they might otherwise.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Have, great, And I guess that since you went into
into that distinction a little bit more on the arguments
would now be a good time to go into the
decisions and see how how it all all came out.
It was a five to four decision, Uh, and uh,
it wasn't on ideological lines at all. It seemed like,
(11:58):
so can you go over the majority opinion the reasoning
behind it, and.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Then we'll go to the descent Yeah, So the decision
is five to four, as you mentioned, and Justice Kavanaugh
writes he's joined by Chief Justice Roberts, Justice sodamor, Justice Kagan,
and Justice Jackson. And so we'll talk about the descent
in a minute, which is somewhat divided. But does Kevanaugh
(12:25):
does not reach the broader argument. I think he says
a couple of times that it's the ground that they
reach is narrow, tries to emphasize the narrowness of the decision,
drops a footnote saying we're not addressing the Patsy Felder argument.
So this is really it's really narrow. And so there's
a line, you know, in the opening paragraph that kind
of summarizes exactly where Justice Kavanaugh gets, which says, because
(12:49):
the claimants cannot sue until they complete the administrative process,
they can never sue under section nineteen eighty three to
obtain an order expediting the administrative process. Okay, so the
major opinions somewhat sets aside the insufficient notice question. I
didn't see the majority of picion separating that out, but
at the very least it's enough to reverse the Supreme
(13:10):
Court of Alabama saying when when a plaintiff in this
type of instance is trying to challenge the delays in
the process. It's kind of a never ending loop that
they can never actually come to state court because they
aren't getting a decision, so they cannot exhaust and the
whole and what their claim is is not this decision
(13:30):
was wrong, but we were in permissively being denied a decision.
And so that is kind of where the court where
the court falls and addresses this what it claims to
be a narrow a narrow holding. And yet but yet
some of the reasoning might might extend a little bit
(13:50):
further than the majority might imagine. And that's something that
the scent says. Great.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
And then I guess, as you said that the scent
was split just as Tom wrote, wrote the dissenting opinion,
but Justice Alito, a Justice Coursic, and Justice Parrott only
joined in Part two. And then you you were cited
in the dissenting opinion. So if you can just touch
on the dissenting opinion as a whole, and then also
(14:18):
your your citation that was in there.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Yeah, so thinks and I think so Part one, Justice
Thomas reiterates his view about how he views kind of
the role of state jurisdictional limitations. And this comes back
to a decision Heywood be Drowned from two thousand and
nine that involved a state law, also involving Section nineteen
eighty three, and so in order to kind of understand
(14:44):
where he's coming from and where the argument with the
majority is, we need to understand Heywood just a little bit.
So before Heywood, we had a had a rule, or
at least people understood there to be a rule that
as long as the state law that prohibited state courts
from a duiccating a federal claim, as long as it
was a neutral rule of judicial administration, then it was okay.
(15:06):
And we understood judicial administration to be mean. It needs
to be jurisdictional, meaning we're not actually reaching the merits,
we're not hearing the claim, and then saying no federal
law applies to this claim. It's it's it's jurisdictional is
about administration and neutral means it needs to divide. It
needs to kind of coverable state and federal claims. Not
(15:28):
it can't target the federal claim. It can't say our
jurisdiction just doesn't extend any federal claims. Justice Thomas in
Heywood and argues that actually, this discrimination rule, the idea
of neutral doesn't isn't rooted in the Constitution, right, So
he makes the argument that Article three, by allowing Congress
(15:51):
to create lower federal courts, was recognizing that state courts
might not hear all federal claims and that we might
need lower federal courts. Also says that the supremacy clause
just talks about laws that conflict, but a law that
just restricts jurisdiction doesn't actually conflict with a substantive law
that governs kind of what the rights and obligations of
(16:12):
the parties are. So he also was alone and a
sole dissenter. Heywood v. Drown was also a five to
four decision at the time. It was Justice Galia, Chief
Justice Roberts, and Justice Alito who joined Justice Thomas on
the other part. But he was alone there, and he
reiterates his argument in part one that actually there's no
(16:33):
discrimination nondiscrimination requirement at all when it comes to state
courts hearing federal claims. And then so then I'll get
back to kind of what Haywood did. And this is
where the dissenters in williams Our case today come back
into the play. But Justice Thomas reiterates this and says,
as long as it's jurisdictional, and he defines jurisdictional by
(16:55):
meaning it's dismissed without prejudice, meaning the state courts just
won't hear the claim. You can always go to federal
court later, but just you can't hear it. He says,
as long as it's it's actually jurisdictional. And I agree,
He says, I agree that you know it can't just
be nominally jurisdictional, it actually has to be jurisdictional. Then
we shouldn't care about this. And because the Alabama law
(17:18):
here about exhaustion is jurisdictional, we shouldn't care. Then, as
you mentioned, he drops a footnote because that goes even
further and says, well, we should actually reconsider two of
our additional line of cases, at least might need to
reconsider them. One is that there's even a due process
problem here. So the reason why there's a due process
problem is that we have a case named Gold v. Kelly,
(17:41):
and then a line of cases including Matthews v. Eldridge
and others, that say, sometimes government benefits or entitlements are
property within the meaning of the due process clause. It
says no state shell or in the or in the
Fifth Amendment, that you know, the government shall not deprive
(18:02):
any person of life, liberty, and property withou due process
of law. And just as Thomas says, I think historically
kind of government that ifits in entitlements were probably not property,
you didn't have a right to them until you actually
kind of received them and took a property interest in
the money. And so in this case that would obviously
defeat kind of the Section nineteen eighty three claim. And
(18:23):
then he says, we also might need to reconsider whether
Section nineteen eighty three is kind of a standalone cause
of action or whether it gives federal courts jurisdiction over
certain state law causes of action that implicate federal rights.
And this is where he cites one of my papers.
I argue that, as originally understood, section nineteen eighty three
(18:44):
was not a standalone federal cause of action that gave
kind of a new and unique individual right to come
to federal court. What it did was it codified these
the federal rights, which was needed to establish out a
question jurisdiction. But then it allowed plaintiffs to bring whatever
their state law claims were into federal court if those
(19:08):
state law claims were seeking to vindicate a federal right.
And that's mostly you know, most of that understanding is
done by the backdrop, where before nineteen thirty eight, the
causes of action and actions at law were derived from
from state law. As a matter of statute, Congress required
federal courts to look to state law to know which
(19:30):
causes of action or in that case the forms of
action historically would be used. But also kind of the
fact that this section is very simple just says you
can sue the defendants shall be liable in an action
at law, and what action of law we don't know,
but Justice Thomas says we should reconsider that, in which case,
(19:52):
again section nineteen eighty three, there is no kind of
standalone claim. You'd have to go to state law. And
if state lawer card is exhaustion, then state law RECRD
is exhaustion a state law cause of action. So you
can't bring it in federal court or in state court
because Section nine ten ey three doesn't provide that independent
cause of action. So now we get back to part two,
where the dissenters join right, And now we have Haywood.
So what does Haywood say. Haywood is is not it is,
(20:17):
it's a it's a clear opinion, but it's unclear kind
of which line of reasoning is doing the work. So
Haywood is a case from New York where New York
says state courts no longer have jurisdiction over any claim
for damages again by prisoners against prison officials. That includes
state law claims, that includes federal law claims. So the
(20:37):
four justice descent in in Haywood says, now, again, this
is a narrower view than just Thomas's broader view that
this is as long as it's purely jurisdictional. But they say, well,
this is neutral in that sense. Then it covers state
law claims, and it covers federal law claims. And New
York is New York. State courts are not obligated to
(20:58):
hear a certain type of claim just because Congress wants,
just because Congress has enacted a lot that effects rights
and obligations. And the majority says, no, that's not enough,
it's not enough just to be non discriminatory. And yet
it kind of has three lines of argument at least
(21:19):
how I read it that it's unclear which one's doing
the work. Do you need all three? Which are they
all three independent? So the first one, although it says
non discrimination is not enough to be neutral, it then
kind of says, well, maybe this isn't really neutral because
it's not about all Section nineteen eighty three claims. It's
(21:40):
not about all defendants because it's only prison officials. And
it's really not even about all types of claims against
prison officials because you could bring equitable claims for injunctions
or another or other type of equitable relief. So really
it's kind of jerrymandering that certain type type of claim.
(22:01):
And yes, it includes any state law claims that happened
to come within that jerrymander, but really, kind of we
know what they're doing, right, The state law claims aren't
doing a lot of work there. It's really Section nineteen
eighty three that allows kind of this claim to proceed
and then requires state courts to apply federal law authorizes attorneys, fees,
(22:22):
all types of benefits to bring in Section nineteen eighty
three claim and the court seems to say, well, this
is two gerrymanders. But then in another analysis, the court says, well, really,
this kind of just works as an immunity statute clothed
in jurisdictional garb, which is kind of saying, if there's
(22:44):
a certain type of claim that just can't be brought,
then then we're we're going to be really hesitant.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Right.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
That just seems like the court the state is undermining
federal law as a matter of effects. Right, It's just
it's saying that this type of claim can't be brought.
A Section nineteen eighty three allows this type of claim,
and so therefore it can't be brought. And then the
court also says, well, this is a unique case because
(23:12):
New York, both in the litigation and the legislature, had
said pretty explicitly, the reason why we have this rule
is because we think most claims by prisoners for damages
are frivolous and they waste the prison officials times and
they waste the court's times. And so the court in
Heywood says, well, we don't like when this is a
(23:33):
jurisdictional rule that is based on policy disagreement with Congress,
and in that sense, it's preempted. And so we had
kind of multiple lines of reasoning, and it's unclear. So
let's go through those and see how the Alabama law fairs. Right,
that's kind of how the dissent kind of goes about it.
(23:53):
So on the first which says, this isn't really that neutral.
You know, maybe it's less gerrymandered than the New York law. Right,
it just applies to all, you know, claims that have
to do with benefits, and so it's maybe a little
less jerrymandered. But the petitioners didn't make the argument that
(24:14):
it was that it only really applied to government officials
and only applied to a small subset of Section nineteen
eighty three claims, so maybe it's not as neutral, right.
Heywood also said, when we're thinking about what's the purpose
of jurisdictional rules that we think aren't kind of trying
to be jerrymandered, we think about it as competence over
the subject matter and power over the person. So, you know,
(24:38):
the petitioners here argue, well, it's really not about either
of those because they can eventually hear these claims, so
they must have competence over the subject matter and the person.
It's an Alabama resident and an Alabama official. There's no
concern there. The descent tries to say, well, actually, this
is about concern about the subject matter. This is a
specialized administrative process that courts don't know a lot about,
and exhaustion helps develop the record and get to hear
(25:00):
kind of the expertise is evaluation of the evidence before
we actually get there. Now that that rebuttal does a
lot of work for why there is and it's such
an exhaustion requirement, it's unclear what on a narrower argument,
why that would apply to do process violations due to
(25:20):
delay in that process. Right, Are the employees at the
Department of Labor really good about knowing why there might
be a delay and whether that's a due process violation?
Maybe not, but it does justify why they have the
jurisdictional rule to begin with. The second one, which talks
about the effects, is the one that the majority latches onto.
So the majority says, as as I mentioned in the
(25:41):
opening paragraph, because these claims can now never be broughted
because you can't exhaust a claim that you're not processing
my attempts to exhaust. As a matter of an effect,
it effectually prohibits these claims from ever being brought right,
And it really kind of rests on a few quote
out of Heywood that support that, and the Descent says
(26:03):
that was never really a different line of reasoning if
you actually understand where those quotes came from. They were
really all about the purpose. They were saying New York
had a policy of disagreement, and it expressed that policy
disagreement by effectually prohibiting these claims from coming. And so
the Descent says, there is no evidence of purpose here, right,
(26:24):
there's no evidence that section nineteen eighty three claims were barred.
Section nineteen eighty three claims are a very very small
portion of claims that are going to arise out of
these benefits determinations. Most of them are going to be
under state law or maybe under some kind of federal law.
But those don't always have to be brought under section
nineteen eighty three. And so the descend says, well, this
is all about purpose, and this is neutral, and therefore
(26:48):
we should we should let Alabama define the scope of
its courts jurisdictions, or if it's court's jurisdiction and the
majority was just as Kavanaugh says, no, in a effect,
this prevents a certain species of claim from being brought
and that's what Heywood was really targeting, was saying, even
if it's jurisdictional and truly jurisdictional, if its effect is
(27:11):
to prohibit a species of claim from being able to
be brought in state court, then it's preempted. And that's
where the majority lands.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Great, I mean, really great job summarizing all the different
aspects apply it in these opinions. Can you just touch
a little a little bit on what you see as
the consequences going forward for these types of claims? You
know now that now that the case has been decided.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Yeah, so I, as I mentioned before, Justice Kavanaught really
tries to emphasize the the narrowness of the opinion, saying
it's it's really just about jurisdictional requirements that require that
in turn require exhaustion of a claim that really can't
be exhausted because it's kind of a never ending circle.
Justice Barrett asks this in oral argument, said, well, what
(28:00):
happens if what happens if they go back and they
submit a letter saying your delay is violating the Social
Security Act and the due process claim? And I want
to kind of exhaust that. Well, one answer is the
Department of Labor. The state Department of Labor gets that
letter and says, oh, you're right, we need to process
your claim. Let's process your claim. In which case everyone's good.
(28:23):
We got what we wanted anyway, because the end all
the plaintiffs were seeking was an injunction compelling a decision.
We get a decision. But what if they in turn
sit on that letter just like they were sitting on
the initial application. Then have they exhausted? Have they not right?
The descent says, well, actually, Alabama law represent has a
(28:43):
futility exception, so it does not prevent these from being
brought at all. Once you give this Department of Labor
a reasonable amount of time, then you can say exhaustion
is futile. Therefore I can properly bring my claim that's
not raised squarely in the case. And the majority kind
of just dismisses that. But once we get beyond that,
(29:09):
we have The descent says, kind of, the reasoning here
is going to have great ripple effects, and the majority responds.
The last substance of paragraph says, the descent further says,
our opinion may have ripple effects, quoting the descent, but
as we have emphasized our opinion today is narrow. It
resolves this dispute, but it is careful not to go
beyond this court's existing precedence. Okay, So, according to the majority,
(29:31):
it's saying, this is just a simple application of Heywood,
it's a really narrow it's just these types of these
specific types of claims that are barred jurisdictionally barred by
an exhaustion requirement, and there's there's nothing else. Now, the
descent says, Okay, you can say that over and over again.
But if your rule is it effectively prohibits a species
(29:55):
of claim from being brought, all the work is going
to be done in defining what's the species of claim.
So let's say state courts say, or the state legislature says,
state courts are not very good at adjudicating civil rights claims.
We just don't think that they're very good for whatever reason. Right. So,
but the purpose of this hypothetical is it's a concern
(30:15):
about competence over the subject matter. And so we're going
to take out all civil rights claims, not federal claims.
Not all federal claims. It includes some federal claims can
still last as long as they're not civil rights claims
and all civil rights state and federal right. So it's neutral.
This is about the competence of the court. It's jurisdictional.
They dismissed without prejudice. You can always go to federal
(30:36):
court for these cases. What happens then, and let's put
aside the constitutionality, because maybe they can't prohibit state courts
from hearing state civil rights cases. But let's put that
aside in some in this this rule, this law would
categorically bar a species of federal claim from being brought
any Section nineteen eighty three claim period. Now is that allowed? Now?
(30:59):
Is that now carve out to the idea that it's
a neutral rule of judicial administration when and we're going
to second guess whether it's really neutral by looking at
whether it has affects the competence of the court or
the court's power over the people. Maybe maybe not. That's obviously,
you know, a the kind of the end of the
run hypothetical. But let's move it back a little bit
(31:21):
to what happens if it's certain types of police encounters
state and federal. Does that count? What happens if it's
certain types of administrative law claims okay, where the court's
just the legislature just says state courts aren't very good
administrative law claims. Does this effectively? Does? Is with tho?
(31:42):
Those types of rules effectively foreclosed a species of federal
claim from being brought in state court. Maybe maybe not,
but that's where all the work is going to be
going forward. And now, you know, having said that, even
if the court interprets that claim very very broadly, there
just aren't very many of these cases, right. I mean,
(32:03):
we have Heywood that comes down in two thousand and nine.
This is the first case the Supreme Court has gone
since then. There are other ones that have floated around
the server courts. But it's unclear to me whether this
is a big area of litigation, right. Are there lots
of state laws that don't clearly fall on one side
or the other. I'm not sure. Maybe state courts are
(32:25):
going to be less adventurous and trying because of this decision,
but I'm not sure that they were beforehand either. And so,
as far as you know practical effects on a broader scale,
not sure how much this does. But as far as
within this narrow world of Section nineteen eighty three claims
in state court. You know, depend it depends on how
(32:48):
we interpret the majority's rule. It's clear what the majority
of saying. There are certain types of narrow claims that
you know, a particular species of narrow claims that you
can't a state court can't effectively prohibit from coming to
state court. And yet we don't know almost anything about
(33:09):
where that line is. We have a couple of examples
in Heywood and now Williams. So you read, but we're
left with some unanswered questions that again because of the
background of this, maybe we don't ever actually see answered,
because this isn't really an area where state courts are
pushing the boundaries. Right. Well, thank you so much for
(33:30):
joining us, Tyler. It's always great to see great Thank you,
I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Thank you for listening to this episode of SCO Discussed.
SCO Discussed is a project of the Federalist Society, not
for profit educational organization of conservative and libertarian law students,
law professors, and lawyers, founded upon the principles that the
state exists to preserve freedom, that the separation of governmental
power is essential to our constitution, and that it is
(33:55):
emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say
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Speaker 2 (34:16):
Dot org slash multimedia.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
That's f E d s OC dot org slash multimedia.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
This has been a FEDSOC audio production
Welcome to scot Discast, a project of the Federalist Society
for Law and Public Policy Studies. Our contributors joined us
from around the country to bring you expert commentary on
US Supreme Court cases as they are argued and the
decisions are issued. The Federalist Society takes no position on
particular legal or public policy issues. All expressions are those
(00:23):
of the speaker. Hello, and welcome to scot Discast. I'm
your host, Kyle hammernis On, behalf of the Faculty division
of the Federalist Society. We are here today to discuss
Williams versus Reed, which was decided by the Supreme Court
in a five to four decision on February twenty first,
twenty twenty five. Is my honor to introduce our guest today,
(00:45):
Professor Tyler Linley. Professor Linley is an Associate professor of
law at the J. Rubin Clark Law School at Brigham
Young University. His research centers on the judicial, rural, and
historical evolution of the judiciary in America. He has extensively
examined published on judicial remedies, federal courts, constitutional law, and
administrative law. And with that, I'd like to hand things,
(01:06):
or to President Lee to get us started by talking
about how the case got to the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Thank you. So this case comes out of Alabama and
the plaintiffs are several more than twenty individuals in Alabama
who applied for unemployment benefits in the wake of the
COVID pandemic. As you might imagine, the Alabama Department of
Labor now the Department of Workforce, was overwhelmed by a
(01:36):
lot of the applications that came in in the years
following COVID. The plaintiffs had a mix of complaints about
the process for claiming Social Security or not Social Security sorry,
unemployment benefits. One was in the primary one was that
(01:57):
the Department of Labor, the Alabama departm of Labor, was
not even processing their claims, that many of these sat
for more than a year. Others argued that the notice
that the Department of Labor provided them about the ear
preliminary decisions that could be appealed within the Department of
Labor or insufficient. The Alabama Department of Labor has a
(02:22):
process that claimants need to go through. They submit an
initial claim that has an initial determination and the statute
requires that determination to be made promptly but doesn't provide
a deadline. Then once that determination is made, then the
claimant can appeal an adverse determination within the Department and
then eventually up to the Board of Appeals, which is
(02:46):
composed of members appointed by the governor. So this is
an intricate process. Now, Alabama also allows for eventual appeals
into courts of these determinations or challenges to the process,
but an Alabama statute limits the judicial jurisdiction of those
(03:06):
types of appeals. The statute essentially says that no circuit court,
the state Circuit Court, shall permit an appeal unless that
appeal has been exhausted through all of the administrative remedies,
so has to go through all of the appeal process
within the Department of Labor and then can come before
state court. So these plaintiffs are stuck in the administrative
(03:30):
process and they sue the Secretary of Labor, the Alabama
Secretary of Labor in state court under section nineteen eighty three,
which is a federal law. So this federal law, Section
nineteen eighty three is generally understood to provide a federal
cause of action for any violation by state officials of
(03:51):
an individual's constitutional or federal statutory rights. So these plaintiffs
say that the delays in the process or the sufficient
notice violate both the due process clause of the Constitution
and the Social Security Act, which kind of sets forth
the procedures that states have to follow in administering these benefits.
(04:12):
And so they go to state court saying, we want
the state court to issue an injunction against the Secretary
of Labor and the employees of the Secretary of Labor
ordering them to process these applications or, in the event
of the improper notice at the insufficient notice, to fix
(04:34):
the notice and allow an appeal. And so they want
an injunctive remedy, and the Alabama courts say, well, we
have an Alabama law that says all claims that come
out of this out of the Secretary of Labor at
kind of any benefits claims need to be exhausted before
we have jurisdiction. So we don't have jurisdiction. That goes
(04:55):
to the Alabama Supreme Court. The Supreme Court says we
don't have jurisdiction, and the petitioner's appeal saying no, No, No.
Section nineteen eighty three. This federal law that we're suing
under requires the states to hear this case preempts the
exhaustion jurisdiction rule. And we'll get into exactly whether it's
an exhaustion rule or whether it's a jurisdictional rule, but
(05:17):
preempts that and doesn't allow its application when it comes
to Section nineteen eighty three claims specifically.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Great, so the case gets to the Supreme Court, can
you talk a little bit about how each side argued
the case before we jump into the decision.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Yeah, so the petitioners hear, the plaintiffs, those who are
claiming unemployment benefits, had a broader and then a narrower argument,
And the broadest argument is that although this exhaustion requirement,
this requirement that the plaintiffs before going to state court
have to exhaust their administrative remedies before the secretary of labor,
(06:00):
that this exhaustion requirement is just categorically not allowed, even
if it's framed in jurisdictional terms. And so you have
a couple of cases that come beforehand that maybe kind
of give a little bit of color to this. One
is a case called Patsy that in which a federal
court had imposed an exhaustion requirement. Often exhaustion requirements are
(06:25):
kind of unlogged common law, may you know, judge made
And the Supreme Court says in Patsy, No. Section nineteen
eighty three does not have an exhaustion requirement, and an
exhaustion requirement is inconsistent with this scheme where plaintiffs get
to go directly to federal court and get damages or
(06:46):
equitable relief for violations of their federal rights, whether it
be constitutional or statutory. So we have that case, and
then we have a case called Felder that comes out
of Wisconsin. This is out of a state court and
the or at least out of a state law. And
in Felder, what happened was there's a state law requiring
(07:07):
a notice of the claim. Plaint just had to give
a notice of the claim to the defendants and then
let it sit for a certain amount of time before
they could bring a suit. And the question was, cant
does this law apply to a Section nineteen eighty three claim.
And there was some dispute about whether that's truly an
exhaustion requirement or kind of or what it might be.
But the Court characterizes it as an exhaustion requirement. Saying
(07:29):
you have to kind of try an attempt to make
peace with the defendant by giving a notice of claim
and giving them an opportunity to settle and have discussions,
and said, no, that exhaustion requirement doesn't work. It's again
inconsistent with Section nineteen eighty three, therefore preempted, the state
(07:50):
laws preempted, and courts can't apply that state law in
section nineteen eighty three cases. And the petitioners here say
this is even though it's up in jurisdictional garb, this
is an exhaustion requirement. So it just falls within this
Patsy Felder line of cases that just say Section nineteen
eighty three can't have an exhaustion requirement. Their narrower argument is, well,
(08:14):
this particular exhaustion requirement, even if maybe it can apply
in some instances, maybe we can at least force them
to go to the administrative body, the state administrative body,
in some cases, it can't apply to these types of
claims because these claims are challenging the process that they
(08:34):
have to exhaust, and so it doesn't really work, and
so we should just carve out these types of claims
if we were actually claiming that they had made a
wrong decision. We got all the way through the appeals
and they'd made a wrong decision that violates the Social
Security as Act or some other federal provision, then maybe
we have to exhaust right, Maybe we can't just say
(08:57):
that in the initial determination before we appeal violates my
federal rights. But here we're just challenging the process. We
just want an order telling them to process our applications
or give up me sufficient notice. We're not actually challenging
the ultimate determinations. And so in that instance, this exhaustion
requirement has to be preempted. Now, the state is arguing
(09:20):
argues kind of against both of those arguments on a
somewhat broad broad argument, but it kind of defeats both
of those arguments, which they say, hey, this is different
than an exhaustion than a typical exhaustion requirement. Although it
hinges on whether you've exhausted, it deprives the court of jurisdiction,
(09:41):
it doesn't mean that you lose. So the state says,
in a normal exhaustion case, a plaintiff sues hasn't exhausted
and if the time has run by which they can't
exhaust or or depending on the exact exhaustion rule. Then
they lose on the merits, they get a dismissal with prejudice.
They can't come back. It's over that they're done. Sometimes,
(10:05):
you know, courts will stay the case so that they
can go back and exhaust But that's but the point
is is that it operates on the merits. The court
has chosen to hear the case and decides the case
on exhaustion grounds. They say, here this is different the
Alabama Supreme Court. The Alabama courts just rejected this at
the jurisdictional stage, and the plaintiffs can still go to
(10:25):
federal court or at least arguably can maybe with some
statute of limitations complications. But they're saying that this is
not us adjudicating the claim and imposing an exhaustion requirement.
This is just the state deciding what's the scope of
state court jurisdiction. And state courts always have jurisdictional rules, right,
they say, small claims court can only handle these types
(10:47):
of quick cases, you know, maybe circuit court or trial
court or whatever it might be. We can always define
our jurisdiction. And so that defeats both the petitioners broad
argument that this is an exhaustion requirement and therefore falls
with an Patsy and Felder and also the narrow argument,
which says, maybe this is a bad idea, but it
just leaves you to go to the federal court and
(11:08):
that's just fine. We're just defining our jurisdiction. And so
these are the types of arguments that are going on,
which is do we properly view this as kind of
an exhaustion requirement or is this just a run of
the mill jurisdictional requirement that we generally think state courts
can define their jurisdiction And it's it's not. It's it's
(11:28):
not a matter of federal concern. If a state court
just doesn't have as much jurisdiction as they might otherwise.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Have, great, And I guess that since you went into
into that distinction a little bit more on the arguments
would now be a good time to go into the
decisions and see how how it all all came out.
It was a five to four decision, Uh, and uh,
it wasn't on ideological lines at all. It seemed like,
(11:58):
so can you go over the majority opinion the reasoning
behind it, and.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Then we'll go to the descent Yeah, So the decision
is five to four, as you mentioned, and Justice Kavanaugh
writes he's joined by Chief Justice Roberts, Justice sodamor, Justice Kagan,
and Justice Jackson. And so we'll talk about the descent
in a minute, which is somewhat divided. But does Kevanaugh
(12:25):
does not reach the broader argument. I think he says
a couple of times that it's the ground that they
reach is narrow, tries to emphasize the narrowness of the decision,
drops a footnote saying we're not addressing the Patsy Felder argument.
So this is really it's really narrow. And so there's
a line, you know, in the opening paragraph that kind
of summarizes exactly where Justice Kavanaugh gets, which says, because
(12:49):
the claimants cannot sue until they complete the administrative process,
they can never sue under section nineteen eighty three to
obtain an order expediting the administrative process. Okay, so the
major opinions somewhat sets aside the insufficient notice question. I
didn't see the majority of picion separating that out, but
at the very least it's enough to reverse the Supreme
(13:10):
Court of Alabama saying when when a plaintiff in this
type of instance is trying to challenge the delays in
the process. It's kind of a never ending loop that
they can never actually come to state court because they
aren't getting a decision, so they cannot exhaust and the
whole and what their claim is is not this decision
(13:30):
was wrong, but we were in permissively being denied a decision.
And so that is kind of where the court where
the court falls and addresses this what it claims to
be a narrow a narrow holding. And yet but yet
some of the reasoning might might extend a little bit
(13:50):
further than the majority might imagine. And that's something that
the scent says. Great.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
And then I guess, as you said that the scent
was split just as Tom wrote, wrote the dissenting opinion,
but Justice Alito, a Justice Coursic, and Justice Parrott only
joined in Part two. And then you you were cited
in the dissenting opinion. So if you can just touch
on the dissenting opinion as a whole, and then also
(14:18):
your your citation that was in there.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Yeah, so thinks and I think so Part one, Justice
Thomas reiterates his view about how he views kind of
the role of state jurisdictional limitations. And this comes back
to a decision Heywood be Drowned from two thousand and
nine that involved a state law, also involving Section nineteen
eighty three, and so in order to kind of understand
(14:44):
where he's coming from and where the argument with the
majority is, we need to understand Heywood just a little bit.
So before Heywood, we had a had a rule, or
at least people understood there to be a rule that
as long as the state law that prohibited state courts
from a duiccating a federal claim, as long as it
was a neutral rule of judicial administration, then it was okay.
(15:06):
And we understood judicial administration to be mean. It needs
to be jurisdictional, meaning we're not actually reaching the merits,
we're not hearing the claim, and then saying no federal
law applies to this claim. It's it's it's jurisdictional is
about administration and neutral means it needs to divide. It
needs to kind of coverable state and federal claims. Not
(15:28):
it can't target the federal claim. It can't say our
jurisdiction just doesn't extend any federal claims. Justice Thomas in
Heywood and argues that actually, this discrimination rule, the idea
of neutral doesn't isn't rooted in the Constitution, right, So
he makes the argument that Article three, by allowing Congress
(15:51):
to create lower federal courts, was recognizing that state courts
might not hear all federal claims and that we might
need lower federal courts. Also says that the supremacy clause
just talks about laws that conflict, but a law that
just restricts jurisdiction doesn't actually conflict with a substantive law
that governs kind of what the rights and obligations of
(16:12):
the parties are. So he also was alone and a
sole dissenter. Heywood v. Drown was also a five to
four decision at the time. It was Justice Galia, Chief
Justice Roberts, and Justice Alito who joined Justice Thomas on
the other part. But he was alone there, and he
reiterates his argument in part one that actually there's no
(16:33):
discrimination nondiscrimination requirement at all when it comes to state
courts hearing federal claims. And then so then I'll get
back to kind of what Haywood did. And this is
where the dissenters in williams Our case today come back
into the play. But Justice Thomas reiterates this and says,
as long as it's jurisdictional, and he defines jurisdictional by
(16:55):
meaning it's dismissed without prejudice, meaning the state courts just
won't hear the claim. You can always go to federal
court later, but just you can't hear it. He says,
as long as it's it's actually jurisdictional. And I agree,
He says, I agree that you know it can't just
be nominally jurisdictional, it actually has to be jurisdictional. Then
we shouldn't care about this. And because the Alabama law
(17:18):
here about exhaustion is jurisdictional, we shouldn't care. Then, as
you mentioned, he drops a footnote because that goes even
further and says, well, we should actually reconsider two of
our additional line of cases, at least might need to
reconsider them. One is that there's even a due process
problem here. So the reason why there's a due process
problem is that we have a case named Gold v. Kelly,
(17:41):
and then a line of cases including Matthews v. Eldridge
and others, that say, sometimes government benefits or entitlements are
property within the meaning of the due process clause. It
says no state shell or in the or in the
Fifth Amendment, that you know, the government shall not deprive
(18:02):
any person of life, liberty, and property withou due process
of law. And just as Thomas says, I think historically
kind of government that ifits in entitlements were probably not property,
you didn't have a right to them until you actually
kind of received them and took a property interest in
the money. And so in this case that would obviously
defeat kind of the Section nineteen eighty three claim. And
(18:23):
then he says, we also might need to reconsider whether
Section nineteen eighty three is kind of a standalone cause
of action or whether it gives federal courts jurisdiction over
certain state law causes of action that implicate federal rights.
And this is where he cites one of my papers.
I argue that, as originally understood, section nineteen eighty three
(18:44):
was not a standalone federal cause of action that gave
kind of a new and unique individual right to come
to federal court. What it did was it codified these
the federal rights, which was needed to establish out a
question jurisdiction. But then it allowed plaintiffs to bring whatever
their state law claims were into federal court if those
(19:08):
state law claims were seeking to vindicate a federal right.
And that's mostly you know, most of that understanding is
done by the backdrop, where before nineteen thirty eight, the
causes of action and actions at law were derived from
from state law. As a matter of statute, Congress required
federal courts to look to state law to know which
(19:30):
causes of action or in that case the forms of
action historically would be used. But also kind of the
fact that this section is very simple just says you
can sue the defendants shall be liable in an action
at law, and what action of law we don't know,
but Justice Thomas says we should reconsider that, in which case,
(19:52):
again section nineteen eighty three, there is no kind of
standalone claim. You'd have to go to state law. And
if state lawer card is exhaustion, then state law RECRD
is exhaustion a state law cause of action. So you
can't bring it in federal court or in state court
because Section nine ten ey three doesn't provide that independent
cause of action. So now we get back to part two,
where the dissenters join right, And now we have Haywood.
So what does Haywood say. Haywood is is not it is,
(20:17):
it's a it's a clear opinion, but it's unclear kind
of which line of reasoning is doing the work. So
Haywood is a case from New York where New York
says state courts no longer have jurisdiction over any claim
for damages again by prisoners against prison officials. That includes
state law claims, that includes federal law claims. So the
(20:37):
four justice descent in in Haywood says, now, again, this
is a narrower view than just Thomas's broader view that
this is as long as it's purely jurisdictional. But they say, well,
this is neutral in that sense. Then it covers state
law claims, and it covers federal law claims. And New
York is New York. State courts are not obligated to
(20:58):
hear a certain type of claim just because Congress wants,
just because Congress has enacted a lot that effects rights
and obligations. And the majority says, no, that's not enough,
it's not enough just to be non discriminatory. And yet
it kind of has three lines of argument at least
(21:19):
how I read it that it's unclear which one's doing
the work. Do you need all three? Which are they
all three independent? So the first one, although it says
non discrimination is not enough to be neutral, it then
kind of says, well, maybe this isn't really neutral because
it's not about all Section nineteen eighty three claims. It's
(21:40):
not about all defendants because it's only prison officials. And
it's really not even about all types of claims against
prison officials because you could bring equitable claims for injunctions
or another or other type of equitable relief. So really
it's kind of jerrymandering that certain type type of claim.
(22:01):
And yes, it includes any state law claims that happened
to come within that jerrymander, but really, kind of we
know what they're doing, right, The state law claims aren't
doing a lot of work there. It's really Section nineteen
eighty three that allows kind of this claim to proceed
and then requires state courts to apply federal law authorizes attorneys, fees,
(22:22):
all types of benefits to bring in Section nineteen eighty
three claim and the court seems to say, well, this
is two gerrymanders. But then in another analysis, the court says, well, really,
this kind of just works as an immunity statute clothed
in jurisdictional garb, which is kind of saying, if there's
(22:44):
a certain type of claim that just can't be brought,
then then we're we're going to be really hesitant.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Right.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
That just seems like the court the state is undermining
federal law as a matter of effects. Right, It's just
it's saying that this type of claim can't be brought.
A Section nineteen eighty three allows this type of claim,
and so therefore it can't be brought. And then the
court also says, well, this is a unique case because
(23:12):
New York, both in the litigation and the legislature, had
said pretty explicitly, the reason why we have this rule
is because we think most claims by prisoners for damages
are frivolous and they waste the prison officials times and
they waste the court's times. And so the court in
Heywood says, well, we don't like when this is a
(23:33):
jurisdictional rule that is based on policy disagreement with Congress,
and in that sense, it's preempted. And so we had
kind of multiple lines of reasoning, and it's unclear. So
let's go through those and see how the Alabama law fairs. Right,
that's kind of how the dissent kind of goes about it.
(23:53):
So on the first which says, this isn't really that neutral.
You know, maybe it's less gerrymandered than the New York law. Right,
it just applies to all, you know, claims that have
to do with benefits, and so it's maybe a little
less jerrymandered. But the petitioners didn't make the argument that
(24:14):
it was that it only really applied to government officials
and only applied to a small subset of Section nineteen
eighty three claims, so maybe it's not as neutral, right.
Heywood also said, when we're thinking about what's the purpose
of jurisdictional rules that we think aren't kind of trying
to be jerrymandered, we think about it as competence over
the subject matter and power over the person. So, you know,
(24:38):
the petitioners here argue, well, it's really not about either
of those because they can eventually hear these claims, so
they must have competence over the subject matter and the person.
It's an Alabama resident and an Alabama official. There's no
concern there. The descent tries to say, well, actually, this
is about concern about the subject matter. This is a
specialized administrative process that courts don't know a lot about,
and exhaustion helps develop the record and get to hear
(25:00):
kind of the expertise is evaluation of the evidence before
we actually get there. Now that that rebuttal does a
lot of work for why there is and it's such
an exhaustion requirement, it's unclear what on a narrower argument,
why that would apply to do process violations due to
(25:20):
delay in that process. Right, Are the employees at the
Department of Labor really good about knowing why there might
be a delay and whether that's a due process violation?
Maybe not, but it does justify why they have the
jurisdictional rule to begin with. The second one, which talks
about the effects, is the one that the majority latches onto.
So the majority says, as as I mentioned in the
(25:41):
opening paragraph, because these claims can now never be broughted
because you can't exhaust a claim that you're not processing
my attempts to exhaust. As a matter of an effect,
it effectually prohibits these claims from ever being brought right,
And it really kind of rests on a few quote
out of Heywood that support that, and the Descent says
(26:03):
that was never really a different line of reasoning if
you actually understand where those quotes came from. They were
really all about the purpose. They were saying New York
had a policy of disagreement, and it expressed that policy
disagreement by effectually prohibiting these claims from coming. And so
the Descent says, there is no evidence of purpose here, right,
(26:24):
there's no evidence that section nineteen eighty three claims were barred.
Section nineteen eighty three claims are a very very small
portion of claims that are going to arise out of
these benefits determinations. Most of them are going to be
under state law or maybe under some kind of federal law.
But those don't always have to be brought under section
nineteen eighty three. And so the descend says, well, this
is all about purpose, and this is neutral, and therefore
(26:48):
we should we should let Alabama define the scope of
its courts jurisdictions, or if it's court's jurisdiction and the
majority was just as Kavanaugh says, no, in a effect,
this prevents a certain species of claim from being brought
and that's what Heywood was really targeting, was saying, even
if it's jurisdictional and truly jurisdictional, if its effect is
(27:11):
to prohibit a species of claim from being able to
be brought in state court, then it's preempted. And that's
where the majority lands.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Great, I mean, really great job summarizing all the different
aspects apply it in these opinions. Can you just touch
a little a little bit on what you see as
the consequences going forward for these types of claims? You
know now that now that the case has been decided.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Yeah, so I, as I mentioned before, Justice Kavanaught really
tries to emphasize the the narrowness of the opinion, saying
it's it's really just about jurisdictional requirements that require that
in turn require exhaustion of a claim that really can't
be exhausted because it's kind of a never ending circle.
Justice Barrett asks this in oral argument, said, well, what
(28:00):
happens if what happens if they go back and they
submit a letter saying your delay is violating the Social
Security Act and the due process claim? And I want
to kind of exhaust that. Well, one answer is the
Department of Labor. The state Department of Labor gets that
letter and says, oh, you're right, we need to process
your claim. Let's process your claim. In which case everyone's good.
(28:23):
We got what we wanted anyway, because the end all
the plaintiffs were seeking was an injunction compelling a decision.
We get a decision. But what if they in turn
sit on that letter just like they were sitting on
the initial application. Then have they exhausted? Have they not right?
The descent says, well, actually, Alabama law represent has a
(28:43):
futility exception, so it does not prevent these from being
brought at all. Once you give this Department of Labor
a reasonable amount of time, then you can say exhaustion
is futile. Therefore I can properly bring my claim that's
not raised squarely in the case. And the majority kind
of just dismisses that. But once we get beyond that,
(29:09):
we have The descent says, kind of, the reasoning here
is going to have great ripple effects, and the majority responds.
The last substance of paragraph says, the descent further says,
our opinion may have ripple effects, quoting the descent, but
as we have emphasized our opinion today is narrow. It
resolves this dispute, but it is careful not to go
beyond this court's existing precedence. Okay, So, according to the majority,
(29:31):
it's saying, this is just a simple application of Heywood,
it's a really narrow it's just these types of these
specific types of claims that are barred jurisdictionally barred by
an exhaustion requirement, and there's there's nothing else. Now, the
descent says, Okay, you can say that over and over again.
But if your rule is it effectively prohibits a species
(29:55):
of claim from being brought, all the work is going
to be done in defining what's the species of claim.
So let's say state courts say, or the state legislature says,
state courts are not very good at adjudicating civil rights claims.
We just don't think that they're very good for whatever reason. Right. So,
but the purpose of this hypothetical is it's a concern
(30:15):
about competence over the subject matter. And so we're going
to take out all civil rights claims, not federal claims.
Not all federal claims. It includes some federal claims can
still last as long as they're not civil rights claims
and all civil rights state and federal right. So it's neutral.
This is about the competence of the court. It's jurisdictional.
They dismissed without prejudice. You can always go to federal
(30:36):
court for these cases. What happens then, and let's put
aside the constitutionality, because maybe they can't prohibit state courts
from hearing state civil rights cases. But let's put that
aside in some in this this rule, this law would
categorically bar a species of federal claim from being brought
any Section nineteen eighty three claim period. Now is that allowed? Now?
(30:59):
Is that now carve out to the idea that it's
a neutral rule of judicial administration when and we're going
to second guess whether it's really neutral by looking at
whether it has affects the competence of the court or
the court's power over the people. Maybe maybe not. That's obviously,
you know, a the kind of the end of the
run hypothetical. But let's move it back a little bit
(31:21):
to what happens if it's certain types of police encounters
state and federal. Does that count? What happens if it's
certain types of administrative law claims okay, where the court's
just the legislature just says state courts aren't very good
administrative law claims. Does this effectively? Does? Is with tho?
(31:42):
Those types of rules effectively foreclosed a species of federal
claim from being brought in state court. Maybe maybe not,
but that's where all the work is going to be
going forward. And now, you know, having said that, even
if the court interprets that claim very very broadly, there
just aren't very many of these cases, right. I mean,
(32:03):
we have Heywood that comes down in two thousand and nine.
This is the first case the Supreme Court has gone
since then. There are other ones that have floated around
the server courts. But it's unclear to me whether this
is a big area of litigation, right. Are there lots
of state laws that don't clearly fall on one side
or the other. I'm not sure. Maybe state courts are
(32:25):
going to be less adventurous and trying because of this decision,
but I'm not sure that they were beforehand either. And so,
as far as you know practical effects on a broader scale,
not sure how much this does. But as far as
within this narrow world of Section nineteen eighty three claims
in state court. You know, depend it depends on how
(32:48):
we interpret the majority's rule. It's clear what the majority
of saying. There are certain types of narrow claims that
you know, a particular species of narrow claims that you
can't a state court can't effectively prohibit from coming to
state court. And yet we don't know almost anything about
(33:09):
where that line is. We have a couple of examples
in Heywood and now Williams. So you read, but we're
left with some unanswered questions that again because of the
background of this, maybe we don't ever actually see answered,
because this isn't really an area where state courts are
pushing the boundaries. Right. Well, thank you so much for
(33:30):
joining us, Tyler. It's always great to see great Thank you,
I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Thank you for listening to this episode of SCO Discussed.
SCO Discussed is a project of the Federalist Society, not
for profit educational organization of conservative and libertarian law students,
law professors, and lawyers, founded upon the principles that the
state exists to preserve freedom, that the separation of governmental
power is essential to our constitution, and that it is
(33:55):
emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say
what the law is, not what it should be. Don't
forget to subscribe to our podcast series, including SCO Discasts
and Practice Group podcasts, on iTunes or Google Play. For
an archive of past podcasts, as well as audio and
video of past Federalist Society events, please visit our website
at fedsoc.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Dot org slash multimedia.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
That's f E d s OC dot org slash multimedia.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
This has been a FEDSOC audio production
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