Reps. Barney Frank and John Conyers, Jr. spend taxpayer dollars to file a late amicus brief on behalf of plaintiffs’ lawyers and against investors in Stoneridge v. Scientific-Atlanta, taking issue with my Wall Street Journal op-ed on the case. (H/t L.R.) To wit, “A number of commentators have called for the Court to decide this case by reference to policy considerations nowhere found in the statute.” This is wrong: the op-ed explicitly noted that Congress had twice rejected precisely the sort of liability that petitioners were seeking in this case. It is also ironic: civil securities fraud liability was created by judicial fiat out of a statute that had no private right of action.
Stoneridge: Wherein I am a footnote
Reps. Barney Frank and John Conyers, Jr. spend taxpayer dollars to file a late amicus brief on behalf of plaintiffs’ lawyers and against investors in Stoneridge v. Scientific-Atlanta, taking issue with my Wall Street Journal op-ed on the case. (H/t L.R.) To wit, “A number of commentators have called for the Court to decide this […]
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Not only do Barney “No relation” Frank and John Conyers spend taxpayer dollars, but they do it extremely pointlessly, making no legal argument at all. (The reason why is left as an exercise to the reader.) My favorite lines of the brief were:
“Amici are mindful of the Court’s admonition that amici raise only relevant matters not already brought to the attention of the Court by the parties, see SUP. CT. R. 37.1. Therefore the focus of this brief is to clarify the role of Congress and the relationship among the Executive, the Congress and the Court in seeking to alter the scope of the anti-fraud provisions of the Exchange Act.”
Apparently Frank and Conyers are under the impression that the Supreme Court needs to be reminded of grammar school civics lessons. “The legislative branch makes the law, the executive branch enforces the law, the judicial branch interprets the law.”