Gordon-Darby Holdings had a lucrative contract running New Hampshire's vehicle emissions testing program. Understandably, Gordon-Darby was disappointed when the New Hampshire state legislature repealed the program and canceled the contract. So Gordon-Darby did what many companies would do: It filed suit seeking a court order requiring New Hampshire to maintain the testing program.
Lacking any contractual basis for its suit, Gordon-Darby claimed that New Hampshire was required to maintain its vehicle emission testing program under the federal Clean Air Act. The problem for Gordon-Darby is that the Clean Air Act does not actually require states to do anything, in that states are not forced to adopt or enforce any pollution control measures. Rather, the Act seeks to induce state cooperation by threatening various sanctions if states do not comply, such as a loss of federal funding and the imposition of federal regulations. The Act is structured this way because a direct imposition on the state would be unconstitutional, as the federal government conceded to the Supreme Court when these issues were litigated in the 1970s. Since then, the Supreme Court has made explicit that federal law cannot force states to adopt, implement, or enforce a federally desired regulatory program, as any such requirement would be unconstitutional commandeering.
In the first litigation, the state largely defended on narrow technical grounds, and largely failed to raise the commandeering defense. In my view, this was a mistake, as the anti-commandeering doctrine is quite clear and, in some respects, has its roots in a nearly identical conflict, when the EPA sought to force states to adopt vehicle emission inspection programs in the 1970s. Thus even if Gordon-Darby overcomes the various technical hurdles to filing suit, it has no claim, as it is asking for relief that federal courts cannot lawfully provide.
As Gordon-Darby filed its new notice of intent to sue on May 8, I suspect this means we will see a suit filed in early July. Stay tuned.
Environmental organizations have filed citizen suits against state and local governments alleging that their failure to regulate more stringently, or their issuance of permits to particular activities, violate the Endangered Species Act (ESA). In effect, these suits seek to hold state and local governments vicariously liable for harms to listed species.
There are questions about whether the ESA should be interpreted or applied in this fashion. There are also questions about whether the imposition of vicarious liability on state and local governments violates the anti-commandeering principle under New York v. United States, Printz v. United States, and NCAA v. Murphy.
Last week I hosted a Federalist Society forum, "Commandeering for Conservation?" in which Jonathan Wood of PERC and William Snape of American University's Washington College of Law discussed and debated this question.
For what it is worth, I am with Jonathan Wood on this question, for reasons I explained in this post (and will elaborate on in a forthcoming paper).
The plan to seize 50% of AI firms' stock violates the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. It would also create dangerous government control over a vital industry, in ways similar to Trump's policies.
Sen. Bernie Sanders. (Aaron Schwartz/CNP/SplashNews/Newscom)
In a recent New York Times article, socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders presented a proposal to have the federal government expropriate 50% of the stock of major AI producers. If enacted by Congress, the plan would violate the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
Sanders justifies this expropriation by claiming that AI was produced through the "collective knowledge of humanity":
Artificial intelligence was not created out of thin air. The data and language used by generative A.I. tools didn't just pop into Sam Altman's head or Elon Musk's imagination. A.I. is built on our collective intelligence: our books, songs, artwork, journalism, computer code, scientific research, videos, conversations, images and ideas spanning generations. That is not just the opinion of Bernie Sanders.
For the most part, tech oligarchs have fed this knowledge into their A.I. models without permission, without acknowledgment, without compensation. In other words, the creative work of millions of people — writers, artists, musicians, journalists, teachers, scientists and ordinary citizens — has essentially been stolen by some of the wealthiest people in the world. It's time for us to reclaim it.
Since A.I. is built on the collective knowledge of humanity, the wealth it generates must benefit humanity.
The Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment states that the government may not take "private property" without paying "just compensation."As Richard Epstein and Eduardo Penalver – leading takings scholars with widely divergent views on most political and legal issues – explain in a joint essay on the Takings Clause for the National Constitution Center, "the guarantee of just compensation must apply at the very least to cases in which the government engages in the outright confiscation of property." Stock is private property, and seizing 50% of the stock value of major firms is a pretty obvious case of confiscation.
And it does not matter that Sanders proposes to take "only" 50% of the stock, rather than 100%. If the government seizes half your house or half of your business, that's still a taking. Indeed, the Supreme Court has held that seizing a much smaller proportion of a property is a taking, as in the famous case of Loretto v. Teleprompter, where New York City required the owner of a building to give up a small portion of the roof to put a cable box there. The same principle applies here.
Sanders refers to the seizure as a "one-time 50 percent tax." But that labeling doesn't matter. It's still obviously an expropriation of property, and not simply a tax on the income it generates or even a property tax. One of the key elements of property rights is control over its use. Sanders makes clear that seizing control for the government is a major objective of the proposal. There can be situations where the boundary between a tax and a taking is fuzzy. But this proposal is very obviously on the taking side of the line.
If merely labeling an expropriation like this a tax could immunize the government from takings liability, they could use the same trick to expropriate virtually any property without compensation. Thus, they could take over your house by claiming that it's merely an in-kind tax payable in the form of land-use rights. They could take over any business or charitable organization by claiming that it's a one-time tax payable by turning over the right to control all the organization's activities. And so on.
Sanders could potentially get around Takings Clause constraints by abandoning outright confiscation, and instead having the government pressure firms into giving up control by using regulatory pressure, offering subsidies, or imposing unconstitutional export taxes on those that refuse to comply. Donald Trump has actually used tools like these to acquire stakes in various firms, such as Intel. The Trump administration has recently been considering using such shenanigans to acquire stakes in major AI firms.
The Trump-like approach is, I believe, also subject to a variety of legal objections. But it's less obviously unconstitutional than Sanders' plan for outright confiscation.
In addition to being unconstitutional, the Sanders plan - like Trump's similar policies (which I have forcefully criticized) - is awful on moral and policy grounds. Sanders justifies it on the basis that AI has been "built on the collective knowledge of humanity." That "reasoning" could justify confiscating virtually any property. Pretty much every productive activity relies, in part, on knowledge accumulated by other people previously. Your house, your cellphone, your car, and your refrigerator, are all based on previously developed scientific and other knowledge. Anyone who writes a book or an article is likely building accumulated knowledge, some of it accumulated over many centuries. My writings on democratic theory rely, in part on, ideas that go all the way to the origins of democracy in ancient Greece.
AI producers, like almost everyone else, are building on accumulated knowledge. But they nonetheless make important new contributions, and the government has no right to expropriate them. Consumer choice and competition, not the government, should determine how much value to assign to the AI producers' products, not the state.
To the extent that AI producers may have illegally used others' intellectual property (by using "stolen" creative work, as Sanders puts it), the proper solution is not confiscation by the government, but lawsuits seeking damages. There are, in fact, a number of such cases currently ongoing. Expropriation of AI firms by the federal government would do nothing to compensate people whose intellectual property may have been used without proper authorization. It would just transfer the illegal profit from AI firms to the feds.
Sanders also argues that AI should be under the control of the government because it's an important technology that should not be left to the control of a few billionaires. But a century of experience with socialism shows that government control of major industries leads to horrific results: poverty, oppression, and even mass murder. And for reasons I outlined in detail in this piece, Sanders' brand of "democratic socialism" is unlikely to be much better than the authoritarian kind - nor is it likely to remain democratic for long.
Sanders' progressive supporters would do well to consider whether they want the AI industry - or any major industry - to be controlled by the likes of Trump. Trump isn't the first right-wing demagogue to win an election, and he's unlikely to be the last. Don't give government powers that you are unwilling to have wielded by your political opponents.
It is not true that the only alternative is a few billionaires dominating everything. The AI market is in fact very competitive. Claude, ChatGPT, Grok, Perplexity, and others are rival products competing in this space, produced by different firms. New firms enter the market on a regular basis. And the firms' owners - including billionaires - know they can only make money by meeting consumer demand better than their rivals or at lower cost. That is, so long as they cannot instead rely on government handouts and cronyism of the kind likely to proliferate with greater state control.
AI does pose some risks, and there are legitimate arguments for constraining some types of uses, particularly when it comes to warfare and government surveillance. But the right approach there is restricting dangerous uses, not wholesale expropriation by the government. To the extent that AI is potentially dangerous, government monopoly control over that industry actually exacerbates that danger, by concentrating power in the hands of politicians and their cronies and henchmen.
In sum, Sanders' plan to expropriate a large part of the AI industry is unconstitutional. And it's terrible policy, to boot. On that score, it has much in common with Trump's economic policy agenda.
An excerpt from the long (and, I think, basically correct) opinion in Hoffman v. N.Y. Times Co., decided yesterday by Judge Evelyn Padin (D.N.J.):
Pro se Plaintiff Harold Hoffman brings this action against Defendant the New York Times Company …. Plaintiff's suit stems from an article published by the New York Times on July 25, 2025, titled "Young, Old, and Sick Starve to Death in Gaza: 'There Is Nothing'" along with the article's accompanying photo:
According to Plaintiff, the New York Times deliberately and misleadingly omitted the fact that the infant in the photo—an 18-month-old baby named Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq (pictured with his mother, Hedaya al-Mutawaq)—was born with cerebral palsy, hypoxemia, and serious genetic disorders in order to advance an untrue narrative about the impact of the war between Hamas and Israel on those living in Gaza. Plaintiff also claims that the New York Times's publication of the Article runs in contravention of its motto "All the News That's Fit to Print." …
Plaintiff brings five claims under the NJCFA [N.J. Consumer Fraud Act] as well as one claim for common law fraud. The NJCFA prohibits:
The act, use or employment by any person of any unconscionable commercial practice, deception, fraud, false pretense, false promise, misrepresentation, or the knowing, concealment, suppression, or omission of any material fact with intent that others rely upon such concealment, suppression or omission, in connection with the sale or advertisement of any merchandise or real estate, or with the subsequent performance of such person as aforesaid, whether or not any person has in fact been misled, deceived or damaged thereby, is declared to be an unlawful practice….
Here, Plaintiff appears to bring claims based on two affirmative misrepresentations—(1) publishing the Article and Photo knowing they were false/misleading and (2) the New York Times's Motto—as well as two knowing omissions related to the Article—(1) failing to include Mohammad's full health history in the Article and (2) removing his allegedly healthier older brother from the Photo….
J. Whitfield Larrabee …. alleges that since taking office, President Donald J. Trump … has engaged in a course of unconstitutional conduct (collectively, "the Policy") by issuing executive orders that punish and threaten to punish lawyers and law firms that he dislikes. Larrabee asks the Court to declare the Policy unconstitutional and to enjoin President Trump and other named defendants … from taking any such action against him….
In March, 2025, President Trump issued a memorandum to the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security titled "Preventing Abuses of the Legal System and Federal Court." That Memo directed the Attorney General to seek sanctions against attorneys and law firms who engage in "frivolous, unreasonable, and vexatious litigation against the United States." It also directed the Attorney General to review conduct of attorneys and their law firms in litigation against the Federal Government over the past eight years and, if any misconduct were to be identified, to recommend additional steps to be taken, including reassessment of security clearances and federal contracts.
Contemporaneously, President Trump began to issue Executive Orders ("EOs") that purported to address the conduct of and risks posed by specific law firms. Plaintiff alleges that such EOs targeted law firms based on their past representation of clients and causes disfavored by President Trump. The EOs restricted the access of those law firms to federal buildings and limited official interactions between federal government personnel and their attorneys. Several law firms agreed to provide substantial pro bono work favored by President Trump in order to avoid being subject to similar EOs….
Plaintiff, an attorney and self-described adversary of President Trump, alleges that he has a history of engaging in litigation against President Trump and has represented causes disfavored by him. He says:
[s]o long as Trump is President, [he] intend[s] to make additional legal complaints against Trump's businesses, family members and associates where there are good grounds to do so.
He contends that he faces "a credible threat that the policy will be enforced against [him]" if he follows his intended course of conduct. He further claims that he has been deterred from representing particular clients and has been "engaged in self-censorship" out of fear of such enforcement….
Please enjoy the latest edition of Short Circuit, a weekly feature written by a bunch of people at the Institute for Justice.
New on the Short Circuit podcast: Our old friend Brian Morris rejoins the show for exoneration litigation. And Belmont picks.
Shortly after beginning his second term, President Trump, and later Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, announce policy changes barring persons currently or previously afflicted with gender dysphoria from military service. Current and prospective servicemembers challenge the policy change, and the district court issues a preliminary injunction. D.C. Circuit: The injunction is proper for current service members, but improper for prospective applicants. Concurrence: The injunction is proper for both. Dissent: The injunction is proper for neither.
In 2022, the feds seized the superyacht Amadeain Fiji as part of Task Force KleptoCapture, targeting Russian oligarchs. Second Circuit: Cool.
Man dies after jumping from a highway overpass. Philadelphia police officer, in violation of department policy, uses his personal cell phone to photograph the dead man lying on the road. Then, in "a poor attempt at 'humor,'" he sends it to several colleagues, one of whom posts it to social media. It is forwarded to the bereaved mother, who sues the officer. Third Circuit (unpublished): Qualified immunity. There is no clearly established right to control dissemination and exploitation of one's close relatives' death scene images. Dissent: Our history and traditions establish that it was so obviously wrong that he was on notice. Read More
The Texas Legislature enacted Senate Bill 2420 …, the App Store Accountability Act, with bipartisan support to help parents direct and supervise children's downloads of apps and in-app purchases. The Act accomplishes those goals by requiring age verification; parental consent; and age rating and content display. {[The law] requires app stores to provide certain information in obtaining parental consent, referring to ratings and content … that are determined by the developer.}
The district court issued universal preliminary injunctions against SB2420 after applying strict scrutiny. The State of Texas seeks a stay pending appeal…. Texas has made a strong showing that it is likely to succeed on the merits of its claim that the district court committed several reversible errors.
First, the district court likely erred in applying strict scrutiny to significant parts, if not all, of the Act. At most, SB2420 regulates speech that "proposes a commercial transaction," which is subject to intermediate scrutiny under Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission (1980). {SB2420 may not regulate speech at all, given that it does not target any substantive content but instead regulates commercial conduct with an incidental relationship to speech.}
App store transactions are commercial in nature. After all, users browsing an app store can see a catalog of applications, obtain additional information, and download or purchase an application.
App listings propose commercial transactions, regardless of whether any monetary payment is made. In fact, the "payment" for apps that are purportedly "free" is access to user data and private information. Any minor who downloads an app must accept its terms of service, including agreements about how the minor's data is used. Some terms require minors to waive the right to sue by agreeing to "arbitration pr[o]visions that no child can understand." Detailed user data, including that of minors, is the life-blood of the app store monetization ecosystem….
Governor Kathy Hochul has a decision to make by June 12.
The New York State legislature recently tackled the vital, pressing issue of whether the terms "mother" and "father" are cruel and oppressive. They concluded that these terms are indeed transphobic and need to be replaced in law by "gestating parent" and "non-gestating parent." "Paternity" is also bigoted and axed. Among the Democrats, the vote was, natch, a few shy of unanimous. And let's not kid ourselves: Hochul's signature is inevitable. On all questions gay and trans, the Dems are now entirely controlled by trans and "queer" extremists.
Now take a look at this week's Senate hearings on sex changes for children. Again, the Dems were unanimous, and their position utterly unchanged: the "safety" and "effectiveness" of transing children is beyond any dispute; no one but Republican bigots oppose it; and any problems can be dealt with retroactively by malpractice suits. (The only slight concession to reality was an end to the lie that transing children was the only way to stop them killing themselves. But no apology for the lie, of course. Or for the human wreckage the lie caused.) The Cass Review never happened. Affirmation-only guidelines never existed.
Gays and lesbians and feminists and liberals who oppose transing children and defend the fact of the sex binary? Senators Sanders, Markey, and Baldwin don't seem to know we even exist. Unsurprising. MS NOW, to take one example, has never had a single guest who's been critical of child sex changes. The Cass Review, when it has even been mentioned, has been instantly dismissed. The gay and lesbian press, such as it is, reports on all this as a trans genocide in full swing….
You can read the whole thing here. I haven't followed all these issues closely, especially as to their political effects; but Sullivan certainly has. If readers can recommend sensible contrary views, I'd be glad to add links to them as well.
[This essay is co-authored with Professor Arthur Hellman and Gabe Roth, Executive Director of Fix the Court. Their biographies are below.]
The Constitution provides only one method to punish federal judges who misbehave: impeachment, which can lead to removal from office. But there is broad consensus that judicial impeachment should be reserved for only the most egregious cases. Instead, Congress crafted a middle ground. A judicial council within the regional circuit can review allegations of misconduct, impose reprimands, and where appropriate, make an impeachment referral to the House of Representatives. Of course, the House retains the power to impeach a judge regardless of what the judicial misconduct process determines.
For the most part, this arrangement works well. But a recent case from the Judicial Council of the Eleventh Circuit, based in Atlanta, represents a complete breakdown of the process. A married judge repeatedly had sex in her chambers with a police officer who worked in her district and then lied in an attempt to cover up her compromising acts. Despite this brazen dishonesty, the judicial council slapped her on the wrist and refused to even publicly name her. Since the judiciary failed to live up to its end of the bargain, Congress needs to open an impeachment inquiry.
Judge Eleanor Ross has served on the federal bench in Atlanta since 2014. As early as 2022, she began an affair with an Atlanta police department officer. Over the course of two years, Judge Ross had sex with the officer at least five times in her judicial chambers. In the abstract, no canon of judicial ethics prohibits adultery. Moreover, a judge could have a relationship with a police officer, so long as she recused from any cases that could create a conflict of interest. But life-tenured judges should avoid any compromising actions that could bring disrepute to the court or place them at risk for blackmail. Yet Judge Ross kept her trysts a secret. The district chief judge learned of her sexual activity only after Judge Ross's law clerk heard "kissing" and "moaning" sounds from chambers and blew the whistle.
The in-chambers sexual conduct, by itself, may perhaps have been enough to warrant impeachment, but what happened next clearly crossed the line. The chief circuit judge, who by law is responsible for investigating allegations of judicial misconduct, asked Judge Ross about the allegations. Judge Ross lied. She insisted that "I have never engaged in sexual intercourse in my office." She denied knowing which police officer visited her chambers, even though he signed his name to enter. She charged that her law clerk was trying to retaliate against her. The judge may have even tried to clean a couch cushion that appeared to have been stained with bodily fluids. In sum, the judge repeatedly made false statements to her colleagues and attempted to obstruct the investigation.
The judicial council that investigated this matter laid out the sordid details and concluded that Judge Ross lacked candor. But in the end, Judge Ross's colleagues gave her only the slightest reprimand. Judge Ross agreed to write vaguely-worded letters of apology to her law clerks. And the judge agreed to skip her turn as chief judge and not to serve on any judiciary-wide committee. Worst of all, the judicial council chose to make her reprimand private, finding that she was extremely apologetic and was unlikely to commit similar conduct in the future. The council report did not even name Judge Ross, although it included so many specific facts that it wasn't hard to figure out who she was.
The council failed in its duty to police judicial misconduct. So did the national appellate committee that reviewed the council's decision. Both bodies did not even acknowledge precedent from a similar case. In 2007, Judge Samuel Kent of the Southern District of Texas sexually assaulted court employees, and lied to obstruct the investigation. The judicial council and the Judicial Conference of the United States, whose presiding officer is the Chief Justice of the United States, recommended that Kent should be impeached. The House agreed and unanimously impeached Kent. Kent resigned his judgeship to avoid a certain conviction in the Senate.
To be sure, Judge Kent's sexual assaults were criminal, while Judge Ross's adultery was lawful. But several members of the House Judiciary Committee stated that lying to the judicial body investigating the misconduct is by itself an impeachable offense. On these grounds, there is strong reason to conclude that Judge Ross has also committed an impeachable offense.
The House of Representatives should pick up the investigation of Judge Ross where the judicial council stopped. And this matter should not be a partisan affair. Much like with the Kent proceedings, members on both sides of the aisle should recognize that a judge who lies about having sex with a police officer within her district, and then attempts to obstruct the investigation, has disqualified herself from judicial service.
This process also should not be rushed. One deliberative approach can be found in the impeachment inquiry of Judge Thomas Porteous in 2008. The House established a twelve-member task force with six Republicans and six Democrats to investigate the matter. This collaboration would allow the process continues regardless of who holds the gavel following the midterm elections.
We continue to believe that judges should be the first line to investigate judicial misconduct. But if judges are unable to fairly sit in judgment of their peers, or worse, are seen as covering up misdeeds, Congress must exercise its constitutional prerogative. Serving as a life-tenured judge is a privilege and not a right. Judges who abuse that privilege must be willing to face public scrutiny, especially where they create conflicts of interest that could require recusals. Judge Ross should resign, but if she fails to, the impeachment process may help her see the light.
--
Josh Blackman holds the Centennial Chair of Constitutional Law at the South Texas College of Law Houston and is an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Arthur Hellman is an emeritus professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law; he helped to draft the current version of the judicial misconduct statute and testified as an expert witness at the impeachment hearing on Judge Kent. Gabe Roth is executive director of Fix the Court, which advocates for greater openness and accountability in the federal judiciary.
I am quite skeptical of the lawfulness of the Environmental Protection Agency's rescission of the endangerment finding upon which EPA regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act is based. It is an aggressive move that stretches administrative law norms and challenges Supreme Court precedent.
While I am not convinced the endangerment rescission is lawful, I would hardly argue it is unconstitutional or impinges upon religious liberty. The folks at Our Children's Trust--the group behind the various kids climate suits--feels otherwise. They (along with Public Justice) have filed a challenge to the endangerment finding repeal making such claims.
Last month, in Venner v. EPA, OCT and Public Justice filed a motion to stay the repeal of the endangerment finding alleging the EPA's action violates the youth plaintiffs' "fundamental free exercise rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act" and their "rights to life and liberties under the Fifth Amendment."
Longtime readers know that I do not think much of the federal constitutional arguments advanced in the various kids climate cases. Even without recent decisions such as Dobbs I find the claims that the federal government's failure to control greenhouse gases is a constitutional violation to be outlandish. The idea that federal courts should superintend federal energy policy is hard to fathom--and would be quite hard to contain. Thus it should be no surprise that federal courts (with one exception) have consistently concluded that they lack jurisdiction over these efforts to constitutionalize climate policy--most recently on Wednesday in Lighthiser v. Trump.
The latest filing adds a new wrinkle in that it seeks to add religious liberty claims into the mix. Specifically, the claim is that a failure to mitigate climate change will burden the exercise of the plaintiffs' religious faith because rising temperatures will make it more difficult to practice their faiths. [I have posted excerpts from the brief below the jump.]
I find this argument to be quite creative, but I am also quite confident that it will go nowhere. (The petition's claim that the EPA completely failed to respond to comments raising these concerns, on the other hand, does raise a serious administrative law issue, but I have not looked to see if the claim is correct.])
As for the endangerment finding itself, I will have a brief essay in the summer issue of Regulation expanding on some of my concerns about the lawfulness of the EPA's move. Rest assured, neither the Fifth Amendment nor RFRA is not among them.
From Judge David Leibowitz (S.D. Fla.) in Mosler v. Wagner; plaintiff Warren Mosler is a hedge fund executive, author on economics, luxury sports car developer, and former unsuccessful political candidate; defendant James Todd Wagner was a former Director of Engineering at Mosler's car company, and had tried to buy the company:
Mosler brings this action against Wagner for defamation per se and unauthorized publication of name or likeness. The facts at summary judgment are as follows:
Prior to the instant case, Wagner filed a twenty-count complaint against Mosler in the Circuit Court for the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, in and for Palm Beach County, Florida (the "State Court Proceeding"). After the jury returned a verdict for Wagner, the Honorable Luis Delgado set aside the jury's verdict and entered final judgment in Mosler's favor.
During that time, around September 2024, Wagner registered the website domains, titled "JudgeX.org," "warrenmosler.co.," and "ModernMonetaryTheory-Scam.org," all of which form the basis of the current action. Through these publicly available websites, Wagner published various statements claiming that Mosler bribed Judge Delgado when he overturned the jury's verdict. The websites also represent Mosler's name and likeness without Mosler's consent. In addition to the websites, Wagner continued to disparage Mosler through a YouTube channel he created, called "JudgeXO," once again accusing Mosler of bribing Judge Delgado in the State Court Proceeding.
Wagner's basis for this allegation? A statistical analysis (the "Statistical Analysis") based on mathematical probabilities. This analysis concluded that it was 99.999999999% probable that Judge Delgado accepted a bribe from Mosler. It further informed that it would have taken "an honest judge" nearly thirty-seven billion years to make such a remarkable ruling overturning the jury's verdict in the State Court Proceeding.
The Statistical Analysis, however, admits of the possibility that Judge Delgado was not bribed. Wagner, too, admits that possibility. Wagner does not know what Judge Delgado received as part of this alleged bribe nor who made this bribe. In fact, Wagner nor his counsel in the State Court Proceeding ever argue that bribery was the cause of Judge Delgado setting aside the jury verdict. At Wagner's counsel's deposition, counsel admitted that there was no evidence to support that Judge Delgado was bribed.
The court granted plaintiff summary judgment as to defamation:
From Judge Gretchen Lund (N.D. Ind.) Monday in Chen v. Univ. of Notre Dame; the plaintiffs' Complaint focuses on a Notre Dame Law School Religious Liberty Clinic amicus brief in an Argentine court that included allegedly false "website content and related activities accusing China of genocide and crimes against the human rights of Uyghurs in Xinjiang."
Plaintiffs' Complaint contains very few allegations involving Plaintiffs themselves; largely, the Complaint references alleged harms to "mainland China" and Chinese people generally. There are only six paragraphs in which Plaintiffs identify harm they have suffered. Each are discussed below.
Paragraph 71 alleges that "defendants deliberately fabricated or spread false information and spread lies that slander and demonise China and the Chinese people, The plaintiff is also deeply harmed by this." This appears to be more of a "wrong suffered by the public at large," rather than an actual harm to Plaintiff. This is especially true where Plaintiffs have not identified how they have been demonized, or how the slander has personally caused harm to them. This is not an injury sufficient to satisfy the requirements of standing under Article III.
Paragraph 92 alleges that the defendant "made false statements that were believed by some Chinese children in the USA, causing them serious emotional distress and undermining their connection to their Chinese heritage. The plaintiffs encountered this problem."
Second Annual Aspiring Free Speech Scholars Workshop jointly sponsored by the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law (ASU)
and the Hoover Institution (Stanford University)
Because of a technical problem, any submissions before June 4, 2026 were lost; please resubmit (or submit for the first time) at the new URL listed below, https://tinyurl.com/aspiring-free-speech-scholars
Are you a law student, judicial law clerk, lawyer, or beginning academic hoping to publish a journal article on free speech law? Would you like the opportunity to get advice about your draft from leading free speech scholars?
If so, send us your draft by Sunday, August 16, 2026. (This should still be a draft article, not an article that's already published or expected to be published within six months.) We plan to select the submissions that we think are particularly promising, and invite their authors to a workshop where they can present their papers and get helpful feedback on them. The workshop will be Saturday, October 24, 2026 (with dinner the night before) at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law in Phoenix. We will inform the selected authors by Tuesday, September 8, 2026.
We have funds to pay for transportation and lodging for the selected authors' trips. Eligibility is limited to people who have so far published three or fewer law-related journal articles.
