One commenter on the post “Public school employee unconstitutionally fired for pro-COVID vaccine posts can move forward” wrote:
Eugene Volokh likes to post cases that can move forward because they are able to pass some sort of summary judgment. Mostly it just seems to piss off the usual commenters, either as a biased miscarriage of justice (if they don’t like seeing the espoused claim in the light most favorable to one party) or as an outright legal victory ( If they like the ideas) support them). How long does it take to follow up after a case like this is finally resolved? What are the benefits* of reporting such preliminary activity? Why not a case like this, but one that doesn’t hinge on what might be described as “lathering up rednecks”?
(*It is an argument that such a case might be settled privately before further litigation, and that this might be the only opportunity to discuss such a case. Since I am not a lawyer, I don’t know if this case raises anything legally interesting about this Cases don’t primarily trigger commentary on charter schools, vaccines, vaccine mandates, etc., so I could be dead wrong here.
I figured some other non-lawyer readers might have the same question, so the answer is: I love covering court opinions because court opinions
- Become a precedent (even if only a persuasive precedent, such as a trial court decision);
- Explain how the court applies the legal rule (if the facts are true) Xthen under the legal provisions yes The result will be Z);
- might be brought to my attention (because I do a Westlaw search every day and find new cases mentioning the First Amendment); and
- Provide public details.
In fact, I suspect this is why most legal scholars mostly write court opinions.
On the other hand, the ultimate resolution of a case is usually a settlement. The settlement is not unprecedented. It does not directly address how courts apply legal rules. It usually doesn’t catch my attention. And its terms are often not public (including whether the plaintiff receives any monetary or other benefits). Also, even if the final resolution is a jury verdict (which only happens in a small percentage of cases), it doesn’t show up in my Westlaw queries, so I usually don’t learn about it.
Sometimes court opinions reflect the resolution of a case, such as a court denying or granting a motion for judgment despite a judgment, or an appellate opinion upholding a judgment. Of course, there are times when a court opinion alone resolves a case, such as when they grant summary judgment or a motion to dismiss. When either situation occurs, I would absolutely love to blog about it (although mostly for the same reasons as 1 to 4 above). But based on the above reasons, I am also willing to write down some opinions to promote the progress of the case.
