Source: http://lawsdocbox.com/Legal_Issues/126862286-Supreme-court-of-the-united-states.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 22:29:19+00:00

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6 2 The State makes no headway in attempting to refute this split of authority. Opp. 20. For instance, the State asserts that cases from Virginia and Nebraska are inapposite because they were made pursuant to particular state constitution due process clauses. Opp. 22. But, the State ignores the fact that Virginia and Nebraska, like Minnesota, expressly interpret their due process clauses coextensively with the federal constitution as Jacobs pointed out in its petition (Pet. 11). See Keller v. City of Freemont, 790 N.W.2d 711, 713 (Neb. 2010) (per curiam); Shivaee v. Commonwealth, 613 S.E.2d 570, 574 (Va. 2005). The State fails even to cite Keller or Shivaee. Instead, it baldly asserts that Virginia and Nebraska apply a stricter due process standard than the federal constitution. Unsurprisingly, this erroneous statement comes without any citation to any state case so holding. Opp Nor is the State s attempt to discount Rhode Island persuasive. The State relies on Kelly v. Marcantonio, 678 A.2d 873, 883 (R.I. 1996) (recognizing that states are free to interpret and to construe their own constitutional due process provisions ), but that case concerned a statute of limitations, not a statute of repose. Id. at 874. Further, the State does not 1 The Nebraska Supreme Court s brief discussion of Campbell v. Holt, 115 U.S. 620 (1885), and its dissent in Givens v. Anchor Packing, Inc., 466 N.W.2d 771, 774 (Neb. 1991), is inconsequential. There is no conflict between Givens and Campbell because Givens concerned a statute of repose, which extinguished a cause of action, 466 N.W.2d at 773, whereas Campbell concerned a statute of limitations, 115 U.S. at 621. Further, as noted, the Nebraska Supreme Court has since made clear that it interprets state constitutional protections coextensive to those of the federal Constitution, and ha[s] not afforded greater state constitutional protections. Keller, 790 N.W.2d at 713.
9 5 whether twelve or two circuits have sided with Minnesota, there is an entrenched and irreconcilable conflict in the lower courts, which only this Court can resolve. II. THE DECISION BELOW CONFLICTS WITH THIS COURT S PRECEDENT. Having swung and missed at the split, the State contends that the decision below does not conflict with Danzer and its progeny. This, too, is meritless. Danzer squarely holds that a statute purporting to nullify a defendant s settled property right to be free from liability pursuant to a repose statute violates Due Process, and subsequent cases confirm that holding. See Pet The State offers a grab bag of arguments hoping to challenge Danzer s applicability, but every one of them falls short. First, the State asserts that Danzer is not controlling authority because it is limited to claims in which the limitations period is created at the same time as the cause of action. Opp. 13 (citing Chase Sec. Corp. v. Donaldson, 325 U.S. 304, 312 n.8 (1945)). But that arbitrary distinction is found nowhere in Danzer, which simply turned on the attempted resurrection of a liability that had already been extinguished, not on the happenstance of whether the repose statute was enacted in the same piece of legislation as the cause of action. Danzer, 268 U.S. at 636 (due process violation stemmed from (11th Cir. 2008) ( The crucial difference between the instant case and Eastern Enterprises is that the obligation imposed upon Swisher in the instant case is not retroactive. ). The State is misguided.
10 6 the fact that the lapse of time destroyed the liability of defendant ). 5 Other courts have properly recognized as much. See, e.g., Davis v. Valley Distrib. Co., 522 F.2d 827, 830 n.7 (9th Cir. 1975) ( A close reading of Chase Securities indicates that the Supreme Court did not distinguish Danzer on the ground that the limitations provision was contained in the statute that created the substantive liability. ); Colony Hill, 320 S.E.2d at ; Pet And for good reason: Repose statutes protect defendants from never-ending uncertainty as to liability, Methodist Healthcare Sys. of San Antonio, Ltd. v. Rankin, 307 S.W.3d 283, 286 (Tex. 2010), regardless of whether they are enacted at the same time as, or before or after, the cause of action creating the liability, Opp. 13. Statutes of repose are concerned with defendant[s ] peace, McDonald v. Sun Oil Co., 548 F.3d 774, (9th Cir. 2008), and that peace is no less pronounced when the legislature passes two statutes instead of one. Further, under the State s logic, statutes of repose would afford virtually no protection in the context of common law causes of action, which, by definition, are not created at the same time as the repose period. Second, the State casts aspersions on Danzer as a relic of the Lochner era. Opp. 6, 13. But Danzer 5 As noted in the Petition, Chase is distinguishable because it concerned a statute of limitations, not a statute of repose. Pet. 13; see also Int l Union of Elec. Radio & Mach. Workers v. Robbins & Myers, Inc., 429 U.S. 229, (1976) (statute of limitations case). Further, Chase recognized that the legislature need not enact the repose provision in the same statute as the substantive cause of action. 325 U.S. at 312 n.8. Finally, unlike Chase, here there is unquestionably a property right, as the Minnesota Supreme Court held. Pet. App. 11a 18a.
13 9 claim that is not remotely analogous to a federal right to be immune from suit altogether. 6 Instead, Mercantile National Bank at Dallas v. Langdeau, 371 U.S. 555 (1963) and Local No. 438 Construction & General Laborers Union v. Curry, 371 U.S. 542 (1963) are the closest analogies, and both firmly support jurisdiction. Pet If anything, the federal interest here is more significant: Whereas the federal policy in those cases concerned which tribunal had jurisdiction to hear those actions in the first instance, Opp. 11, the federal due process right at issue here concerns whether any tribunal can hear the State s action in any instance. Section 1257 presents no barrier to this Court s review of that claim. 7 See also Rosenblatt, 86 S. Ct. at 3 & n.7; cf. Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, & n.8 (1985) (denial of qualified immunity is appealable final decision). 6 The State mentions four other cases denying jurisdiction but they are similarly off base. Two (Guillen and Jefferson) are cited for the proposition that a win for Jacobs on remand could moot the federal question. Opp. 8. But that was the case in Langdeau and Curry as well. And, since the federal right is one not to stand trial, the possible outcome of a trial is irrelevant. Rosenblatt v. Am. Cyanamid Co., 86 S. Ct. 1, 3 n.7 (1965) (Goldberg, J. in Chambers). The other two (Johnson and Thomas, Opp. 9) are inapposite for the same reason Flynt is they do not concern anything like a federal right to be free from liability and immune from suit. 7 Contrary to the State s assertion, Jacobs has not suggested that Minnesota interlocutory rules control the federal jurisdictional question. Opp. 10. The citation to the lower court s interlocutory ruling merely described the nature of the due process right at issue. Pet. 19.

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