Cameron v. EMW Women’s Surgical Center (20-601)

argument 20-601

Cameron v. EMW Women’s Surgical Center

Supreme Court of the United States 1h 13m 7 speakers 8 chapters transcribed 7 days ago official recording ↗

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What is the central issue in Cameron v. EMW Women’s Surgical Center?

John G. Roberts 0:00

We will hear argument first this morning in case twenty six oh one Cameron versus EMW Women's Surgical Centre. Mr Kuhn.

Russell M. Kuhn 0:09

Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the court. Two days after learning that another state official had stopped defending Kentucky's House Bill four hundred fifty four. The Attorney General moved to intervene so that the Commonwealth could exhaust all appeals in defence of its law. The Sixth Circuit kept the Attorney General out of court and it made three fundamental errors in doing so. First, the panel overlooked that the attorney general simply sought to pick up where the Secretary had left off in this litigation. More to the point, the Attorney General, on behalf of the Commonwealth, merely accepted a handoff from another state official to exhaust all appeals. Second, the panel refused to consider Kentucky's sovereign interests in enforcing and defending its law.

Russell M. Kuhn 0:56

To be clear, the panel did not merely weigh factors to arrive at its timeliness hold holding. It affirmatively treated Kentucky's sovereign interest as irrelevant to that inquiry. And third, the panel expected the Attorney General to have preemptively intervened While the Secretary was vigorously defending House Bill four fifty four. with the Attorney General's office as his counsel. That is contrary to what this court said in MacDonald. And if accepted more broadly, it would lead to a flood of protective motions to intervene. Before discussing the intervention issue further, let me address the jurisdictional argument that's been raised. This argument overlooks that the Attorney General is here in court today on behalf of the Commonwealth.

Russell M. Kuhn 1:41

This court's case law instructs that acting for a state is a distinct capacity because everyone agrees that the Attorney General did not participate in that capacity in district court. He is not jurisdictionally barred from doing so now. Even still, the Attorney General could not have appealed the district court's judgment. He had been dismissed from the case without prejudice. He was not named in the District Court's judgment. And he had preserved his ability to participate in any appeal and to benefit from any favorable result on appeal. I welcome the Court's questions.

Clarence Thomas 2:16

Uh Mr. Kune, uh you um There isn't much law. for a pellet uh intervention. Uh so what do we rely on? Do we rely on Rule twenty four, which doesn't really apply? А Would you give us what would be your strongest case that we should uh Uh have a basis for this intervention that's not in the uh rules of uh appellate procedure.

Russell M. Kuhn 2:45

So the the best case is the Schofield case that's discussed in our briefing. And what Schofield says is that even though Rule twenty four is not technically applicable in appellate courts, it serves as essentially a helpful uh analogy. Um to so I think Rule twenty four is perhaps the starting point of what we're looking at. And our position is not that intervention in district courts under Rule 24 is always the same as intervention in appellate courts. Our point is that when we have a handoff from one state official to another only to exhaust all appeals, it doesn't make sense to draw a firm line between district court of intervention and appellate intervention. And that's why we think there's such a strong analogy in this case to McDonald's.

Russell M. Kuhn 3:30

McDonald, where Ms. McDonald moved to intervene as soon as she learned that her interests were unprotected, and this court said that that was timely, even though it was post-judging.

Clarence Thomas 3:41

But you still we need a standard for timeliness, uh we need a basis for um uh I think we're reviewing this on abuse of discretion standards. We need a basis for saying that the Sixth Circuit abuse its discretion. And I simply want to know if it's uh Rule twenty-four does not apply on its own terms, what does apply that would give us the authority to find abuse of discretion.

Russell M. Kuhn 4:10

So I I think it is a general uh equitable standard. Uh I don't take my friend on the other side to to argue uh that we are categorically prohibited uh from intervening in an appellate court.