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Page Number: 33.0

4  CAMERON v. EMW WOMEN’S SURGICAL CENTER, P. S. C. 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

for example, filing a petition for rehearing en banc or seek-
ing a writ of certiorari.  Attorney General Cameron and the 
lawyers from his office who had appeared as counsel for the 
secretary  moved  to  withdraw,  and  the  attorney  general 
moved to intervene as a party in his own right.  This was 
nearly five months after the attorney general reappeared as 
counsel for the secretary and over two years after the Dis-
trict Court entered the stipulated order of dismissal.  The 
attorney general also tendered a petition for rehearing en 
banc. 
  The  Court  of  Appeals  denied  the  motion  and  dismissed 
the petition for rehearing en banc.  It observed, among other 
things,  that  the  attorney  general’s  motion  to  intervene 
came “years into [the case’s] progress,” after both the Dis-
trict Court and the Court of Appeals had issued decisions.  
EMW Women’s Surgical Center, P.S.C. v. Friedlander, 831 
Fed. Appx. 748, 750 (CA6 2020).  It explained that having 
been “named . . . as a defendant” in the complaint and hav-
ing “stipulated [to his own] dismissal,” the attorney general 
was unquestionably put on notice of the case long before the 
Court  of  Appeals  issued  its  decision.    Id.,  at  751.    In  the 
Court of Appeals’ view, allowing the attorney general to in-
tervene at this late hour would give would-be intervenors 
“every  incentive  to  sit  out  litigation  until  [a  court  of  ap-
peals]  issue[s]  a  decision  contrary  to  their  preferences, 
whereupon  they  can  spring  to  action.”    Id.,  at  750.    The 
Court  of  Appeals  clarified  that  it  was  “not  reach[ing]  the 
issue of whether Attorney General Cameron has a substan-
tial  legal  interest  in  the  subject  matter  of  this  case”  nor 
“question[ing]  whether  states’  attorneys  general  may  ap-
propriately  intervene  to  defend  their  states’  laws,”  but 
merely addressing the appropriateness of the attorney gen-
eral’s intervention under the circumstances of “this partic-
ular case.”  Id., at 752, n. 4. 
  This Court granted the attorney general’s petition for cer-
tiorari, and now reverses.