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Page Number: 26.0

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BERGER v. NORTH CAROLINA STATE 
CONFERENCE OF THE NAACP 
SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

preliminary  injunction;  and  “did  not  seriously  engage”  in 
discovery.  Id., at 164. 

The  District  Court  again  denied  the  motion,  explaining 
that it was “abundantly clear that [state respondents are] 
actively  and  adequately  defending  this  lawsuit.”    App.  to 
Pet. for Cert. 189.  The court recounted that state respond-
ents had “consistently ‘denied all substantive allegations of 
unconstitutionality’ in this case” and had filed an “expan-
sive” brief opposing NAACP respondents’ motion for a pre-
liminary injunction on the merits.  Ibid.  The court also re-
jected  petitioners’  argument  that  the  attorney  general’s 
conduct  in  the  pending  state-court  litigation  was  inade-
quate.  The court explained that the attorney general’s de-
cision not to move to dismiss the sixth state-court claim in 
that  separate  litigation  “fell  well  within  the  range  of  rea-
sonable litigation strategies”; that the attorney general se-
cured reversal of the state-court preliminary injunction on 
appeal; and that the attorney general “ ‘participated in ex-
tensive fact discovery’ ” in the state-court litigation.  Id., at 
191,  192.  The  court  therefore  found  “no  sound  basis  on 
which  to  speculate  . . .  that  [state  respondents]  and  [the]
Attorney General w[ould] abandon their duty to defend S.B.
824 in this case,” given that, by all appearances, they had 
fully executed that duty in both the federal- and state-court
litigation thus far.  Id., at 193. 

The  District  Court  also  rejected  petitioners’  request  for
permissive  intervention.    In  the  court’s  view,  petitioners’ 
contentions  in  the  federal  litigation,  including  their  re-
peated  skepticism  of  state  respondents’  ability  to  defend 
state  law  vigorously,  demonstrated  that  intervention 
“would only distract from the pressing issues in this case.” 
Id., at 193–194. 

Over a dissent by Judge Harris, the Court of Appeals va-
cated the District Court’s order and remanded for reconsid-
eration  of  petitioners’  request  to  intervene.    The  Court  of