Opinion ID: 451646
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Bounds of the Original Holding in Doe

Text: 18 A summary affirmance of the Supreme Court has binding precedential effect. Hicks v. Miranda, 422 U.S. 332, 344, 95 S.Ct. 2281, 2289, 45 L.Ed.2d 223 (1975). Yet because the Court disposes of the case without explaining its reasons, the holding must be carefully limited. A summary affirmance represents an approval by the Supreme Court of the judgment below but should not be taken as an endorsement of the reasoning of the lower court. Mandel v. Bradley, 432 U.S. 173, 97 S.Ct. 2238, 53 L.Ed.2d 199 (1977); Fusari v. Steinberg, 419 U.S. 379, 95 S.Ct. 533, 42 L.Ed.2d 521 (1975). 19 Despite this general admonition, finding the precise limits of a summary affirmance has proven to be no easy task. Courts seeking to identify the issues governed by a summary affirmance should examine the issues necessarily decided in reaching the result as well as the issues mentioned in the jurisdictional statement. Illinois State Board of Elections v. Socialist Workers Party, 440 U.S. 173, 181-83, 99 S.Ct. 983, 988-89, 59 L.Ed.2d 230 (1979). These two criteria conflict in this case. The jurisdictional statement in Doe presented the question of whether Virginia's sodomy statute violated constitutional rights to privacy, due process, and equal protection under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Yet the Court could have approved of the result reached by the district court without addressing those constitutional issues because the plaintiffs in Doe plainly lacked standing to sue. 5 Hence, the constitutional issues presented in Doe were issues listed in the jurisdictional statement but not necessary to the disposition of that case. 20 Several reasons lead us to conclude that the mention of constitutional issues in the jurisdictional statement in Doe does not override the clear availability of a narrower ground of decision. To begin with, the Supreme Court has generally referred to the two indicia, necessity to the decision and presentation in the jurisdictional statement, as if both were necessary. See Metromedia, Inc. v. City of San Diego, 453 U.S. 490, 499, 101 S.Ct. 2882, 2888, 69 L.Ed.2d 800 (1981) (summary affirmance binding as to precise issues presented and necessarily decided) (emphasis supplied); Illinois State Board of Elections v. Socialist Workers Party, supra, 440 U.S. at 182-83, 99 S.Ct. at 989-90; Mandel v. Bradley, supra, 432 U.S. at 176, 97 S.Ct. at 2240; see also Cherry v. Steiner, 716 F.2d 687, 690 (9th Cir.1983), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 104 S.Ct. 1719, 80 L.Ed.2d 190 (1984). Furthermore, if the jurisdictional statement could expand a summary affirmance beyond the scope of issues necessarily decided, it would give the litigants considerable control over the scope of summary dispositions. While a jurisdictional statement prevents speculation as to what issues the Court actually considered, see Howell v. Jones, 516 F.2d 53, 56 (5th Cir.1975), cert. denied, 424 U.S. 916, 96 S.Ct. 1116, 47 L.Ed.2d 321 (1976), it is only a tool in determining the ultimate question: the most narrow plausible rationale for the summary decision. 21 Lower courts may rely upon the jurisdictional statement as an outside limit on the precential scope of a summary decision but Supreme Court precedent does not allow us to consider the jurisdictional statement as both a minimum and a maximum formulation of the issues decided. Where, as in the Doe case, the facts of the case plainly reveal a basis for the lower court's decision more narrow than the issues listed in the jurisdictional statement, a lower court should presume that the Supreme Court decided the case on that narrow ground. We therefore construe Doe as an affirmance based on the plaintiffs' lack of standing and not controlling in this case.