The Supreme Court on Monday overturned a federal court ruling that upheld the right of a minor to go to court to get permission to undergo an abortion, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson writing a solo opposition to the case.
The ruling from the court on Monday vacated a lower court ruling that a state court clerk could be sued for telling a pregnant teen that the court must notify her parents of her test. to obtain a court order to allow her to obtain an abortion without consent. his parents.
Jackson’s dissent focused on the use of Munsingwear vacatur, in which a case is vacated because it is rendered moot pending review by a higher court — unless the party affected by the initial decision cannot be blamed for “mootness .”
“I am concerned that the contemporary practice related to so-called ‘Munsingwear vacancies’ has drifted away from the doctrinal foundation,” Jackson wrote in his dissent.
The case stems from a lawsuit in Missouri that court clerk Michelle Chapman violated the rights of a 17-year-old pregnant teen. A minor is required under Missouri state law to obtain parental permission to obtain an abortion, but it also allows a minor to seek a court order to override that requirement. If the teen went to court in 2018 to get such a bypass, Chapman said he would have to notify the teen’s parents about the hearing.
The teenager finally went to Illinois and received such a judicial bypass and got an abortion. Two federal courts rejected Chapman’s claim that he was immune from suit.
But the Supreme Court on Monday rejected a lower court’s ruling that Chapman was not immune from the case, sending it back to an appeals court to dismiss the case as moot, accepting the clerk’s argument that the mootness was due to the Supreme Court’s decision. that destroys. Roe v. Wade.
But Jackson argued in his brief that the case became moot because Chapman and the teenager agreed that the original case in Missouri district court had been dismissed, arguing that meant it was unfair for Chapman to lose the his right to appeal.
Jackson also noted that the Munsingwear vacatur had previously been reserved for “exceptional” or “exceptional” cases, and said Chapman’s case was “far from unique.”
“In my view, it is important that we hold the line and limit the availability of the Munsingwear vacatur to truly exceptional cases,” he wrote.
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