Gorsuch Rulings On Frozen Trucker, Autism Education Cases Could Sink Nomination

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Thursday morning that Senate Democrats will attempt to filibuster the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, striking a blow to the Trump administration.

Schumer said Gorsuch is “not a neutral legal mind but someone with a deep-seated conservative ideology," and added that the 49-year-old federal judge "was unable to sufficiently convince me that he’d be an independent check" on the executive branch. The Senate rules currently require 60 votes to end debate on a Supreme Court nominee and proceed to a confirmation vote (the GOP has a 52-48 advantage in the Senate). Republicans have previously threatened to change the rules to make a simple majority enough to move to a confirmation vote, a procedural change that has been dubbed the "nuclear option."

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Schumer's announcement sets up a showdown over the fate of the Court, which has had a vacant seat since Scalia died more than a year ago, and the rules of the Senate. But why exactly do the Democrats oppose Gorsuch? Two of Gorsuch's opinions have received a great deal of attention from progressives during the course of his confirmation hearings.

The "frozen trucker" case

In TransAm Trucking Inc. v. Admin Review Board, Gorsuch dissented with his two colleagues on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. The case was about a trucker named Alphonse Maddin who was driving across Illinois on a freezing January night in 2009. The brakes on Maddin's trailer froze, and Maddin was forced to pull over and wait for repairs. Maddin soon discovered the heat in his truck was broken, and ended up waiting for help for several hours in subzero temperatures. Finally, fearing that he might freeze to death, Maddin unhitched the trailer and drove the truck to find help. His employer TransAm fired him for leaving the trailer unattended.

Maddin filed a complaint with the Department of Labor, and his lawyers argued he was protected by the Surface Transportation Act, which says an employer can't fire an employee who "refuses to operate a vehicle" if "the employee has a reasonable apprehension of serious injury to the employee or the public." The Labor Department's Administrative Review Board ruled the law applied in the case, and found Maddin was fired unfairly. TransAm appealed to Gorsuch's three-judge panel. The other judges agreed with the Review Board, but Gorsuch did not, arguing that since the law only applied to people who "refuse to operate a vehicle" it did not apply to Maddin, who did operate his vehicle. The other judges concluded that by unattaching the trailer, Maddin was refusing to operate his vehicle in the way the company intended. Gorsuch didn't buy that argument.

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., pounced on Gorsuch's opinion during hearing Tuesday's hearing. Franken confirmed that Gorsuch applied the "plain meaning rule" to the case, which states a law must be interpreted and applied to the case according to a normal, word-for-word reading of the law. But Franken argued the plain meaning rule was misapplied by Gorsuch.

"When using the plain meaning rule would create an absurd result, courts should depart from the plain meaning," Franken said.

"It is absurd, to say this company is in its rights to fire him because he made a choice of possibly dying from freezing to death, or causing other people to die by driving an unsafe vehicle. That's absurd," Franken said, adding "It makes me question your judgment."

Special Education In Public School Systems

It wasn't just Democrats that questioned Gorsuch's rulings during his confirmation hearings, but the Supreme Court itself. By coincidence, the Court ruled on Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District Wednesday, and in doing so, unanimously reversed a Gorsuch ruling in a similar case the same day the judge was defending his record on Capitol Hill.

Both cases involve parents trying to get reimbursement from the government for sending their severely autistic sons to specialized private schools after, they argued, the boys couldn't function, or get an education, in public school districts. According to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), a student is guaranteed a "free appropriate public education" to all students with disabilities. Because the parents in both cases argued public schools failed to provide an "appropriate" public education, they argued the local school district was required to pay a private school tuition.

Gorsuch ruled the IDEA "does not require that states do whatever is necessary to ensure that all students achieve a particular standardized level of ability and knowledge. Rather, it much more modestly calls for the creation of individualized programs reasonably calculated to enable the student to make some progress towards the goals within that program."

But on Wednesday the Supreme Court disagreed, ruling 8-0 in favor of overturning Gorsuch's interpretation of the IDEA.

"It cannot be right that the IDEA generally contemplates grade-level advancement for children with disabilities who are fully integrated in the regular classroom, but is satisfied with barely more than de minimis progress for children who are not," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote. "De minimis" is a legal term meaning "too trivial or minor to merit consideration."

On Thursday, Jeff Perkins, the father of the autistic boy in Gorsuch's case, appeared in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee as a witness. In his prepared statement, Perkins wrote Gorsuch's interpretation of the IDEA "requires that a school provide a disabled child an education just above meaningless."

"Legal philosophy and case law aside, such an interpretation clearly fails the common sense test," Perkins wrote. "Why would Congress pass a law with such a trivial intent?"

Questioned about the Supreme Court's ruling during his Wednesday hearing, Gorsuch argued he was merely applying a precedent from 1996 when ruling against Perkins and his family.

“I was wrong, Senator,” Gorsuch said. “I was wrong because I was bound by circuit precedent. And I’m sorry.”