I’ve been meaning to write about Ledbetter v. Goodyear, but hadn’t got around to it, and I find that I’m not able to come up with a real essay on the topic. I did want to mention that when Chief Justice Roberts was being confirmed, a year and a half ago already, one of the many, many questions I wanted him to answer, and the Senate to discuss, was this: How primary is the right to access to court?
One of the concerns that I have with the direction this country is heading is that is appears to me that access to our courts is being diminished. This is true in criminal cases, as we’ve seen discussed here, where a right to a trial by jury is guaranteed de jure but not de facto, and it is even more true in civil cases, where access to courts is being restricted de jure. We are told that we live in a litigious society, and that it is a bad thing to live in a litigious society. That’s probably true. But it seems to me worse to live in a society where any powerful person (or fictitious entity, such as a corporation) can be negligent, can discriminate, can defraud and embezzle, and can work active harm with a substantial chance that the victims of those actions will not be able to seek redress through the courts.
So my take on Ledbetter is that the majority was looking for a way to keep the case out of court, and they found one. My instinct runs the other way. It’s likely that I’m in the minority on this topic (as so many others), but I don’t really know. I do know that I’d like there to be some discussion on the issue, before (as I fear) another of our great national traditions slides into disrepair and disfunction.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.