FAA v. Cooper (10-1024)

argument 10-1024

FAA v. Cooper

Supreme Court of the United States 1h 0m 4 speakers 8 chapters transcribed 4 days ago official recording ↗

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What is the Supreme Court’s central question about the FAA’s waiver of sovereign immunity?

John G. Roberts 0:02

We'll hear argument next in case ten ten twenty four, Federal Aviation Administration versus Cooper. Mr Feigen.

Unknown 0:09

Mr Chief Justice, and may it please the Court. If Congress had intended to waive the sovereign immunity of the United States to allow uncapped emotional distress claims under the Privacy Act, it would have and was required to state that waiver clearly and unambiguously in the statutory text. The substantive requirements of the Act sweep far beyond any pre existing common law protection of privacy to impose a detailed set of new and pervasive requirements on the collection, maintenance, use and dissemination of millions of federal agency records. The Act, for example, forbids agencies from keeping too much information about an individual compels agencies to collect information about an individual, when practical, from the individual himself and not from other sources.

Unknown 0:55

and can require agencies to safeguard information about an individual even when that information is otherwise already publicly available. Congress would not have taken lightly the question of whether to expose the United States to expansive damages for intentional or willful violations of these novel record keeping requirements. Indeed, the way in which the district court believed that the Social Security Administration violated the Privacy Act in this case is something that never would have been actionable at common law and never would have resulted in emotional distress. Then maybe Congress shouldn't have passed this statute, but the injury, the invasion of privacy. That's Not something where pioneer damages are

Unknown 1:39

um prime If they exist at all. I mean this is The the taught that this is comparable to is intentional infliction of emotional distress. The the um Personne. who is subject to this, to this embarrassment, this humiliation. doesn't have out of pocket costs but is terribly distressed. nervous, anxious and all the rest. The the the act that the Congress is reaching The impact of it is of that nature, not I mean Pecuniary damages do not ordinarily attend uh conduct that embarrasses, humiliates you, causes mental distress. Well first of all, Justice Ginsburg, I'd like to respectfully disagree with the premise of the question that the Privacy Act is comparable to common law invasion of privacy. Uh all the requirements I just described that are under the Privacy Act would not have existed at Common Law Invasion of Privacy, even though common law invasion of privacy was, as you say,

Unknown 2:50

uh compensible with emotional distress awards. In fact, even if we focus just on the disclosure related provision of the Privacy Act, it itself is much broader than common law invasion of privacy. Even if it is Even if it is the damages All right. The damages are not of a pecuniary kind. So you could say that Congress was much more generous than the common law was. But the impact on the person who's suing. is not going to be out of pocket business loss, pecuniary loss, is going to be the embarrassment, the humiliation. So it's it's If Congress wanted to do something about The impact on the person that he's g given a right. It's not gonna do something has to do with pecuniary damages, which is not likely The person in in this

Unknown 3:51

plaintiff's situation is not likely to suffer. Well, first of all, Your Honor, there sometimes are, as there were at common law, pecuniary damages resulting from in it either violations of the Privacy Act or invasions of privacy, and the government sometimes pays out very large pecuniary judgments. But to get to the core of your question about why Congress might not in the Privacy Act have provided an emotional distress award, I think the text of the Act demonstrates that Congress thought about the possibility of providing an emotional distress award. But decided not to do that in the initial version of the Act that it passed in nineteen seventy-four. Instead, that version of the Act in Section five C two B three assigns to the Privacy Protection Study Commission the task of making a recommendation as to whether the act should later be expanded to provide for general damages.