Colonel Hogan
Madness
- Joined
- Sep 16, 2005
- Posts
- 18,372
“And what would you have done?” Franken asked. “I’m asking you a question. Please answer the question,” Franken pressed.
“Senator, I don’t know,” the finest legal mind in all of conservative America answered. “I wasn’t in the man’s shoes, but I understand why…”
“You don’t know what you would’ve done,” Franken summed up for him. “OK, I’ll tell you what I would’ve done. I would’ve done exactly what he did. And I think everybody here would’ve done exactly what he did. And I think that’s an easy answer. Frankly, I don’t know why you had difficulty answering that.”
From there, Franken turned to the dissent Gorsuch wrote. As Franken described it, the issue came down to a “plain meaning” rule: “When the plain meaning of a statute is clear on its face, when its meaning is obvious, courts have no business looking beyond the meaning to the statute’s purpose.” That’s what Gorsuch relied on in his ruling.
“But the plain meaning rule has an exception,” Franken continued. “When using the plain meaning rule would create an absurd result, courts should depart from the plain meaning. . . . It is absurd to say this company is within its rights to fire him because he made the choice of possibly dying from freezing to death or causing other people to die possibly by driving an unsafe vehicle. That’s absurd.”
“I had a career in identifying absurdity,” the former “Saturday Night Live” writer and performer added — and the room briefly burst out in laughter — “and I know it when I see it . . . and it makes me question your judgment.”
Although it will likely have no effect on Judge Gorsuch's confirmation to the Supreme Court, Sen. Franken almost certainly achieved his purpose -- to create the illusion that Judge Gorsuch callously abandoned the generally accepted exclusion to the "plain meaning rule" to the detriment and utter disregard for the welfare and possible survival of a stranded truck driver named Alphonse Maddin.
The problem is, there is no such federal appeals case entitled Maddin v. Trans Am Trucking, or vice versa. But if you Google it, as I did, you will return a case entitled Trans Am Trucking v. Administrative Review Board, United States Department of Labor. The sole issue in THAT case was whether the review board (ARB) properly applied the "whistle blower" provision of the Surface Transportation Assistance Act when it ordered Trans Am to reinstate Maddin to his job with back pay.
Accordingly, Judge Gorsuch's dissent was directed solely to the proper application of the relevant statute:
It might be fair to ask whether TransAm’s decision was a wise or kind one. But it’s not our job to answer questions like that. Our only task is to decide whether the decision was an illegal one. The Department of Labor says that TransAm violated federal law, in particular 49 U.S.C. § 31105(a)(1)(B). But that statute only forbids employers from firing employees who “refuse to operate a vehicle” out of safety concerns. And, of course, nothing like that happened here. The trucker in this case wasn’t fired for refusing to operate his vehicle. Indeed, his employer gave him the very option the statute says it must: once he voiced safety concerns, TransAm expressly — and by everyone’s admission — permitted him to sit and remain where he was and wait for help. The trucker was fired only after he declined the statutorily protected option (refuse to operate) and chose instead to operate his vehicle in a manner he thought wise but his employer did not. And there’s simply no law anyone has pointed us to giving employees the right to operate their vehicles in ways their employers forbid. Maybe the Department would like such a law, maybe someday Congress will adorn our federal statute books with such a law. But it isn’t there yet. And it isn’t our job to write one — or to allow the Department to write one in Congress’s place.
It might also be a fair question to ask if Gorsuch's legal analysis of 49 U.S.C. § 31105(a)(1)(B) is truly sound in light of the comparative arguments of his 10th Circuit colleagues in the majority.
What is decidedly UNFAIR and wholly inappropriate is to expect a judge to apply an exception to the "plain meaning rule" when "using the plain meaning rule would create an absurd result." In fact, the plain meaning of the statute did NOT create such a result.
How in the hell would I know? Because if it had, there is every reason to believe that the other two circuit court judges in the majority opposed to Gosrsuch would have used that argument. And they didn't.
The entire argument between Gorsuch and his colleagues was whether Trans Am violated the law as written. No exception to the statute as written was required.
Unless, of course, you are a grandstanding U. S. Senator grasping at partisan straws.