Immensely exciting morning at the Supreme Court.

Live-blogged at SCOTUSblog.

UPDATE 1: We're waiting for the University of Texas affirmative action case (Fisher), the 2 same-sex marriage cases (on Prop 8 (Hollingsworth) and DOMA (Windsor), and the Voting Rights Act case (Shelby County). I'm feeling that we're going to get a whole lot of minimalism here. Fisher will be about the peculiarities of the UT program. Prop 8 will fizzle on something technical. Windsor herself will keep her remedy, but DOMA will survive. And the Voting Rights Act will survive. If so, that will be the excitement of no excitement. Get ready.

UPDATE 2: The cert. grants have been announced, and they include review of the President's recess appointment power. The case arises out of Obama's interpretation of what counts as a congressional recess, and involves 3 appointments to the NLRB. Details on the case — NLRB v. Canning — here. More details here.

UPDATE 3: The Court affirms the 7th Circuit in Vance, 5-4, Alito writing: "a supervisor for vicarious [liability] under Title VII only if she has the power given by the employer to take tangible employment actions against the victim." The 4 dissenters are the 4 liberals.

UPDATE 4: Another opinion by Alito, Mutual Pharmaceuticals v. Bartlett. Also 5-4. Federal law about drug warnings preempts state law remedies based on "design defect."

UPDATE 5: In Vance, Ginsburg, dissenting, compares the majority's narrow reading of the statute to Ledbetter, which became a big political issue. Congress subsequently amended the statute. So Ginsburg says: "Congress has, in the recent past, intervened to correct this Court’s wayward interpretations of Title VII.... The ball is once again in Congress’ court to correct the error into which this Court has fallen, and to restore the robust protections against workplace harassment the Court weakens today." I assume the majority has no problem with that. It's statutory interpretation, and if Congress wants this greater liability for employers, it can/should amend the statute.

UPDATE 6: Breyer writes the 7-2 opinion in U.S. v. Kebodoeux: "Registration requirement under SORNA as applied to Kebodeaux falls within the scope of Congress's authority under the Necessary and Proper Clause." SORNA is the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act. The dissenters are Scalia and Thomas.

UPDATE 7: Fisher! 7-1, only Ginsburg dissenting. Vacated and remanded "because the Fifth Circuit did not hold the university to the demanding burden of strict scrutiny articulated in Grutter and Bakke, its decision afffiming the district court's grant of summary judgment was incorrect." (I'm starting a new post for Fisher and working on reading the case.)

UPDATE 8: The last opinion is UT Southwestern v. Nassar, also by Kennedy: "The Court holds that Title VII retaliation claims must be proved according to traditional principles of 'but for' causation..." This one is 5-4, split as you'd predict a 5-4 split would split. Ginsburg writes the dissent.

UPDATE 9: There will be more opinions tomorrow.

When a woman does something like this, it's supposed to be hilarious.

Like: good for her. But this is flagrant destruction of property and — as we say in tort law   the intentional infliction of emotional distress. It's not funny at all. It should not be encouraged, and it's not even pro-woman to celebrate it, because what is required to find this funny is a foundational belief that women are really too weak to actually hurt anyone seriously. Only men are dangerous. This insults men and women.

And I realize that I'm encouraging the encouragement by linking to that article. Sorry.

By the way, the other woman in this story could have been maliciously screwing up the relationship and deliberately provoking the tortfeasing woman's rage. The man, whom we're expected to believe the enraged woman had loved, was never given a chance to defend himself. His guilt is presumed. Depriving the male of self-defense is an element in classic female revenge scenarios where a man is attacked as he sleeps.

In this current story, the man's body isn't attacked at all, as the pusillanimous woman takes aim at his property. We're expected to laugh as we imagine him frantically searching for his valuable personal items — including his laptop — before somebody else takes them.

"Coca-Cola drinking 'linked to New Zealander's death.'"

Ridiculous headline about a woman who drank 10 liters of Coke every day:

The mother of eight... had developed an addiction to Coca-Cola and would get withdrawal symptoms, including "the shakes", if she went without her favourite drink.

She drank Coke throughout her waking hours and her teeth had been removed because of decay.

The fact that one or more of her children were born without enamel on their teeth should have been treated by her, and by her family, as a warning.”

This has nothing to do with Coke as a product. We're talking about someone who consumed 2.2 pounds of sugar and 970 mg of caffeine every day. And the equivalent of 35 8-oz. glasses of liquid. (I'm saying "equivalent" because I don't picture her pouring the stuff into a glass.) This is not the kind of problem that can be solved with tort suits and warning labels.

But Coke is defending itself against this bad publicity. Have you seen this ad?



I love the extremely tactful voiceover which — la la la la — goes on and on and on just to say one very obvious thing to the almost-too-stupid-to-live crowd: It's not just calories that you eat that will make you fat if you don't burn them off — calories that you drink are real too.

"And the Xhosa for 'tort' is ulwaphulomthetho (oo lwa poo loom twe to)."

Questions, asked at Althouse, get answers.

"Animal activists have been attacking our family, our company, and our employees for decades because they oppose animals in circuses."

"These defendants attempted to destroy our family-owned business with a hired plaintiff who made statements that the court did not believe.... This settlement is a vindication not just for the company but also for the dedicated men and women who spend their lives working and caring for all the animals with Ringling Bros. in the face of such targeted, malicious rhetoric."

The ASPCA pays $9.3 million to get out of this case, which continues against the other defendants, the Humane Society of the United States, the Fund for Animals, Animal Welfare Institute, Animal Protection Institute United with Born Free USA, various lawyers, and a former Ringling employee named Tom Rider.