Court Opinion

ID: 9887853
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 18:30:20.397614+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:49:43.710560
License: Public Domain

Katsas, Circuit Judge, concurring:
  

   The Antideficiency Act states that officers and employees of the United States may not "employ personal services exceeding that authorized by law," except for "emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property."
   
    31 U.S.C. § 1342
   
   . Given the current lapse of appropriations, this provision would seem to bar the Acting Attorney General from dispatching Department of Justice attorneys to defend this appeal. For one thing, the appeal obviously presents no emergency involving human safety or property; to the contrary, it involves only a question whether the Department of Agriculture must release certain information that the plaintiffs desire for their "research and animal protection advocacy." Brief for Appellants at 2,
   
    People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals v. USDA
   
   , No. 18-5074 (D.C. Cir. Nov. 15, 2018). Likewise, without any current appropriation to fund DOJ activities, any "personal services" employed to defend the appeal would seem to be
   
    not
   
   "authorized by law." The counter-argument must be that activity not otherwise "authorized by law" becomes so when this Court orders it. The position appears troubling, for a judicial decree resting on
   that premise-"
   
    la loi, c'est nous
   
   "-seems little better than an executive decree resting on "
   
    l'état, c'est moi
   
   ."
   
    See
   

    Kornitzky Grp., LLC v. Elwell
   
   , No. 18-1160,
   
    912 F.3d 637
   
   , 639-41,
   
    2019 WL 138710
   
   , at *2-3 (D.C. Cir. Jan. 9, 2019) (Randolph, J., dissenting).
  

   Despite these misgivings, I join my colleagues' decision to deny the government's request to stay the upcoming oral argument in this case. I do so for two reasons: First, a panel of this Court recently denied a stay of oral argument in
   
    Kornitzky
   
   , and two judges joined a published concurrence rejecting Judge Randolph's position. The stay motion in this case acknowledged our
   
    Kornitzky
   
   order but presented no reason for disregarding its arguable precedential effect. Second, the stay motion presented no significant argument regarding the "authorized by law" issue noted above. The scope of the Antideficiency Act is not a question implicating our subject-matter jurisdiction, so we need not consider arguments not fairly raised by the parties. Accordingly, we should deny the government's stay motion in this case, but I remain open in future cases to arguments about whether a judicial order can supply the legal authorization required by the Antideficiency Act, as well as arguments about whether that issue remains open in this circuit after
   
    Kornitzky
   
   .
   
    1
   

    Likewise, I express no view on what it means to "employ personal services" under section 1342-an issue raised neither here nor in
    
     Kornitzky
    
    .