Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-1323_c07d.pdf
Page Number: 95

14 

JUNE MEDICAL SERVICES L. L. C. v. RUSSO 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

Given this incentive structure, the District Court’s “good
faith”  test  was  not  up  to  the  task.  Although  the  District
Court did not define exactly what the test required, “good
faith” might easily mean only that a doctor lacked the sub-
jective intent to avoid getting privileges.  See Black’s Law 
Dictionary,  at  836  (defining  “good  faith”  to  mean,  among 
other things, “absence of intent to defraud or seek uncon-
scionable advantage”).

In light of the doctors’ incentives, more should have been 
required.  The court should have asked whether the doctors’ 
efforts to acquire privileges were equal to the efforts they 
would have made if they knew that their ability to continue
to perform abortions was at stake.  The District Court did 
not do that, and because its finding on abortion access rests
on  the  wrong  legal  standard,  it  cannot  stand.    A  finding 
based on an erroneous legal test is invalid; it cannot be sus-
tained under the “clearly erroneous” rule.  See Abbott v. Pe-
rez, 585 U. S. ___, ___ (2018) (slip op., at 25) (“ ‘An appellate
cour[t has] power to correct errors of law, including those
that . . . infect . . . a finding of fact that is predicated on a
misunderstanding  of  the  governing  rule  of  law’ ”  (quoting 
Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc., 466 
U. S.  485,  501  (1984)));  Pullman-Standard  v.  Swint,  456 
U. S. 273, 287 (1982) (similar); see also 9C C. Wright & A. 
Miller, Federal Practice & Procedure §2585, p. 392 (3d ed. 
2008) (Wright & Miller) (“[I]t is axiomatic that the conclu-
sions  of  law  of  the  trial  judge  are  not  protected  by  the 
‘clearly erroneous’ test”).8 
—————— 

8 The  plurality  claims  that  my  criticism  of  the  District  Court’s  “good 
faith” standard “is not a legal argument,” and instead reflects a view of
the facts—namely that the Does acted in “bad faith.”  Ante, at 24.  But 
the  District  Court  used  “good  faith”  as  the  legal  standard  to  assess 
whether Act 620 would cause the Does to stop performing abortions.  Nei-
ther the District Court nor the plurality has defined “good faith.”  Unless 
that term reflects what the doctors would have done if the incentives had 
been reversed—and the plurality does not argue that it does—there is a 
legal issue.