Prison phone calls, volcanic eruptions, and animal testing.
Please enjoy the newest edition of Short Circuit, a weekly feature produced by a team of contributors at the Institute for Justice.
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- James A. Trankle set down ideas and plans aimed at curbing charity fraud. He believed charities misled donors by not disclosing what portion of contributions went to operating expenses rather than to the causes and people they claimed to support. Consequently, Trankle chose to solicit donations directly and lend his own service to the people. The D.C. Circuit noted that his actions ultimately saw him keeping all the funds, which is quite illegal.
- From the First Circuit: a volcanic eruption in Montserrat in 2007 triggers a cascade of events that eventually leads to … a decertified medical school successfully defending against a racketeering suit.
- The FCC altered its stance on prison phone calls in 2024. One reform banned site commissions—payments from telecom companies to lockups to secure exclusive contracts. Another reform allowed pricing models beyond the standard per-minute rate. A coalition of states challenged the ban on site commissions, while a coalition of nonprofits challenged the alternate pricing as potentially worse for inmates than the old system. The First Circuit rejected both challenges and left open other issues for future consideration.
- Fourth Circuit: Mandamus granted! The FCC must act immediately— Supreme Court: Stayed. (Editor’s note: The panel’s decision includes a notably pointed dissent from Judge Wilkinson.)
- Why would your diligent editor bore you with a routine Fifth Circuit civil affirmance? So you too can audibly gasp at the concurrence’s quoting of ex parte emails from the defendant to the judge, foreshadowing what might come if delays persisted.
- “When you’re in debt, the obligation is usually simple: repay what you owe. Yet when Denise Thompson faced a $3,000 tax debt, Allegan County didn’t merely take what she owed. It foreclosed on her home, sold it, and kept the entire $23,500 in proceeds—turning Thompson’s modest debt into a sizable windfall for the County.” Sixth Circuit (unpublished): And her claims aren’t time-barred.
- Parents who bought Invisalign as an alternative to traditional braces may take interest in a Ninth Circuit antitrust ruling reversing summary judgment in favor of the company behind that product. However, those parents would likely need some antitrust know-how to parse what the court actually said. It involves whether it can be an antitrust violation to withhold information from a competitor—a point the concurrence does not bite into.
- Transgender Arizonans may amend their birth certificates if they undergo a sex-change operation. They may do so without an operation but then require a court order. Does this violate equal protection or due process rights for non-operative transgender individuals? Ninth Circuit: Rational basis. (Dear reader, you likely know what that means.)
- Clark County, Nevada enacts a short-term rental licensing regime but later restricts the window for license applications to a brief period and then stops accepting them. A coalition of property owners argues this is a due process violation. The district court agrees. A preliminary injunction allows all residents to rent their homes without a license. Ninth Circuit (unpublished): While not accepting any applications is unconstitutional, the court declines to craft a remedy that permits unlicensed rentals or broad injunctions benefiting nonparties. The case is remanded to narrow the injunction.
- Two-thirds of this (unpublished) Ninth Circuit panel finds that the plaintiffs have stated claims showing that hair-care product labels falsely deny animal testing, but they have not shown enough to prove damages for a class of deceived animal-lovers.
- Tenth Circuit: Adherents of the relatively new religion Singularism claim to a spiritual directive to use psilocybin in violation of Utah law, but that hardly measures up to the federal courts’ own commitment to avoid lawsuits attempting to halt an ongoing state prosecution.
- Before you dive into this Tenth Circuit opinion, ask yourself whether you enjoy outrageous true-crime stories, witchcraft allegations, and similar fare, or whether you’d rather not read about terrible things happening to young children.
- Curious about the difference between a “determination” and a “decision or action”? Fear not, textualists—the Tenth Circuit offers the clarification you seek.
- And in en banc news … there’s no en banc news to report.
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