Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-86_l5gm.pdf
Page Number: 42.0

Cite as:  598 U. S. ____ (2023) 

9 

GORSUCH, J., concurring in judgment 

IV 

While the Court reaches the right result today, its choice 
of the wrong path matters.  Not just because continuing to 
apply the Thunder Basin factors leaves the law badly dis-
torted.  It also matters because Thunder Basin’s throw-it-
in-a-blender  approach  to  jurisdiction  imposes  serious  and 
needless costs on litigants and lower courts alike. 

Jurisdictional rules, this Court has often said, should be 
“clear and easy to apply.”  Hamer v. Neighborhood Housing 
Servs.  of Chicago, 583 U. S.  17, ___ (2017) (slip  op.,  at 8); 
see also Sisson v. Ruby, 497 U. S. 358, 364, n. 2 (1990); Fore-
most Ins. Co. v. Richardson, 457 U. S. 668, 676–677 (1982). 
For  parties,  “[c]omplex  jurisdictional  tests  complicate  a 
case, eating up time and money as [they] litigate, not the 
merits of their claims, but which court is the right court to 
decide those claims.”  Hertz Corp. v. Friend, 559 U. S. 77, 
94  (2010).    For  courts,  jurisdictional  rules  “mark  the 
bounds”  of  their  “ ‘adjudicatory  authority.’ ”  Boechler  v. 
Commissioner,  596  U. S.  ___,  ___  (2022)  (slip  op.,  at  2). 
Judges therefore “benefit from straightforward rules under 
which they can readily assure themselves of their power to 
hear  a  case,”  Hertz,  559  U. S.,  at  94,  while  “adventitious” 
rules leave them with “almost impossible” tasks to perform 
that squander their limited resources, Executive Jet Avia-
tion, Inc. v. Cleveland, 409 U. S. 249, 266 (1972). 

There are many words to describe the Thunder Basin fac-
tors, but “clear and easy to apply” are not among them.  To 
appreciate the trouble Thunder Basin can generate for liti-
gants and lower courts alike, consider some of the facts of 
Ms.  Cochran’s  case  that  do  not  find  their  way  into  the 
Court’s opinion. 

A single mother of two and a certified public accountant, 
Ms.  Cochran  began  looking  for  part-time  work  in  2007. 

—————— 
the Exchange Act and the FTC Act preserve their right to proceed in dis-
trict court to address the here-and-now injuries they assert.