Will Baude

And that if you were counsel for Coney Island Auto Parts, I think you might have tried to put more emphasis.

You might have said, look, even if I can't, you know, get relief under 60C, I should, or under, you know, even if I can't get relief under the rules, I can in some way, you know, not comply with it or collaterally attack it or do that, whatever.

We cannot divine any principle requiring courts to keep their doors perpetually open.

I mean, I guess you're technically right.

Although, can you imagine trying to write the opinion that says, in 2026, we said we couldn't divine any principle and it was hard to accept this proposition.

We now accept it.

We now divine and accept it.

That's true.

And the reason to be a little bit cautious is also the answer to that question actually has to turn on what is a reasonable time and what are the other things available.

Yeah.

It's not that in the abstract.

Which we're not told.

In the abstract, a reasonable time seems hard to be unconstitutional unless reasonable is understood in some fairly strict way to not include things that are kind of reasonable.

Yeah.

And or there's no other alternative.

And so suddenly you're having void judgments enforced against you without adequate opportunity to fight them.

So maybe it has to be written that way.

And maybe it's just written that way to make clear that they're not inviting the exact replay of this case, the slightly better advocate who actually squarely raises the constitutional question.

I think the majority would agree with that.

They'd say, yeah, that's what Rule 405 is for.