2018-25
17-1307
Dennis Obduskey, Petitioner v. McCarthy & Holthus LLP

Summary Analysis

R-25
DATE: 2019-03-20
DOCKET: 17-1307
NAME: Dennis Obduskey, Petitioner v. McCarthy & Holthus LLP
WORTHY: False

OPINION: Court
   AUTHOR: Breyer
   JOINING: Roberts, Thomas, Ginsburg, Alito, Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh
   GOOD: No
PAGES: 14

OPINION: Concurring
   AUTHOR: Sotomayor
   JOINING: None
   GOOD: No
PAGES: 3


Case Commentary

First, let us butcher The Court's Decision, leaving out any extraneous words that would only serve to cloud out clarity.

We concede that if... only the primary definition, [then the primary definition]... would qualify... for all purposes.

That is to say: Per Definition [1], the respondent is a Debt Collector; but as Definition [2] also applies, Definition [1] magically no longer holds.

The Court is WRONG.

{CAP LOCK KEY LOCATED!}

In programming, the syntax would look like:

if person in [A, B]:
    person = debt_collector
elif person in [B]:
    person = debt_enforcer
else:
    person = None

I will grant you that any code written as such is poorly constructed, as person = debt_enforcer will never fire.

But the law is about how the code fires, not whether its written correctly.

After all, laws are hardly ever written correctly.



Another way to look at this case is that The Supreme Court behaved as I typically behave, giving the result it (or I) want(s), rather than the result that would be logical and (therefore, one would hope) legally correct.



Underlying the decision (I am sure) is the dictum that if a law does not work as constructed, one is to mentally re-construed it so that it does work.

But this is a Fools Errand, as it quickly changes The Law from what The Law says, to a hodgepodge collection of rules and special cases.



My principle would be simply that The Law is The Law and if that is not as Congress intended, they can change it.

{Whereas, My Principle for this Judging the Judges project is This is what the Law should be.}

The Supreme Court, on the other hand, has held that The Law needs to be re-engineered on the fly whenever it doesn't seem to make sense; and as such, The Court has made The Law even more incomprehensible.

It's bad precedent.

And it's a bad decision.

if debt_collector:
    must_do [A, B, C, D]
elif debt_enforcer:
    must_do A
else:
    law_does_not_apply