Court Opinion

ID: 9425894
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:16:08.122874+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:58.162663
License: Public Domain

Mr. Chief Justice Burger,
concurring.
I join the opinion of the Court; however, it may be useful to mention two points which bear further discussion. First, as the Court notes, ante, at 387 n. 12, all parties failed to inform us that after the District Court entered judgment the Connecticut Legislature significantly changed its unemployment compensation system. I agree with the Court that this failure is “difficult to understand.” Ibid. It is disconcerting to this Court to learn of relevant and important developments in a case after the entire Court has come to the Bench to hear arguments.
Even at oral argument we were not informed of the changes in state law although both parties filed their briefs after the new statute was passed. The Connecticut Legislature appears to have changed the system at least in part to expedite administrative appeals and thereby treat claimants more fairly, see ante, at 380, 386, thus meeting in part, at least, the basis of the attack on the system. All parties had an obligation to inform the Court that the system which the District Court had enjoined had been changed; however, only a cryptic reference was made to the change of law. The appellees' brief is 122 pages long and notes the change once, at the end of a footnote. Brief for Appellees 65 n. 52. At that point appellees are contending that the long delay between the seated interview and administrative review of a decision to withhold benefits aggravates the defects which they contend exist in the seated interview itself. There appellees quote Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U. S *391371, 378 (1971), where the Court said: “The formality and procedural requisites for the hearing can vary, depending upon the importance of the interests involved and the nature of the subsequent proceedings.” (Brief for Appel-lees 64; emphasis appellees’.) Given the fact that the changes in the procedures may well have an effect on “subsequent proceedings,” ante, at 386, the Court should have been explicitly advised that changes had occurred. The only reference to changes in the law actually gives the impression that their effect is negligible.
This Court must rely on counsel to present issues fully and fairly, and counsel have a continuing duty to inform the Court of any development which may conceivably affect an outcome.
Second, although I agree wholeheartedly with the Court’s reasoned discussion of the tension between the summary affirmance in Torres v. New York State Dept. of Labor, 405 U. S. 949 (1972), aff’g 333 F. Supp. 341 (SDNY 1971), and the Court’s opinion in California Human Resources Dept. v. Java, 402 U. S. 121 (1971), ante, at 388-389, n. 15, we might well go beyond that and make explicit what is implicit in some prior holdings. E. g., Gibson v. Berryhill, 411 U. S. 564, 576 (1973); Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651, 671 (1974). When we summarily affirm, without opinion, the judgment of a three-judge district court we affirm the judgment but not necessarily the reasoning by which it was reached.* An *392unexplicated summary affirmance settles the issues for the parties, and is not to be read as a renunciation by this Court of doctrines previously announced in our opinions after full argument. Indeed, upon fuller consideration of an issue under plenary review, the Court has not hesitated to discard a rule which a line of summary affirm-ances may appear to have established. E. g., Edelman v. Jordan, supra, at 671; Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp., 395 U. S. 337, 343-344 (1969) (Harlan, J., concurring); id., at 350 (Black, J., dissenting); Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533, 614 (1964) (Harlan, J., dissenting).

Some are quick to use the district court opinion to define this Court’s judgment. See Note, The Supreme Court, 1953 Term, 68 Harv. L. Rev. 96, 102 (1955); Note, Summary Disposition of Supreme Court Appeals: The Significance of Limited Discretion and a Theory of Limited Precedent, 52 B. U. L. Rev. 373, 409 (1972). Another common response to summary affirmances of three-judge-court judgments is confusion as to what they actually do mean. See Currie, The Three-Judge District Court in Constitutional Litigation, 32 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1, 74 n. 365 (1964); Shanks, Book Review, 84 *392Harv. L. Rev. 256, 257-258, n. 17 (1970); Note, Impact of the Supreme Court’s Summary Disposition Practice on its Appeals Jurisdiction, 27 Rutgers L. Rev. 952, 962 (1974); Note, 52 B. IT. L. Rev., supra, at 407-415.