Comment by gnicholas | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gnicholas | Hacker News Reader

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> Despite the somewhat misleading headline, the Supreme Court didn't really say anything new here.

A unanimous denial of certiorari (declining to hear the case) sends a pretty strong message to lawyers and their clients. It only takes 4 votes (1 less than majority) to hear a case, so the fact that there were zero justices interested is a clear message. While it is technically possible that there could in the future be a circuit split, which could then be appealed to the SCOTUS, it is unlikely SCOTUS would hear that case.

And given what happened today, it is even less likely that a competent lawyer would counsel their client to appeal a similar case up to a federal appeals court (because it looks like it would be a loser of a case).

So while the SCOTUS did not affirmatively speak today, their unanimously declining to hear the case does actually say something new, and this is being hailed as a landmark-ish case in the legal accessibility community.

FWIW, IAAL, and I run an assistive technology startup.

I don't think we know it was unanimous. The orders list doesn't say anything to that effect, and the justices rarely publicly dissent from denials of cert, so their silence doesn't mean anything.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/100719zor_m6...

You're right that public dissents from cert. denial are not as common as dissents from SCOTUS opinions. However, given the questions presented, the current composition of the Court, and the fact that only 4 justices are needed to grant cert., it still seems unlikely that the Court would rule in favor of a different defendant in a different case.

That is, this case presented a novel issue, and it was at a stage where the questions were legal in nature (not factual). That's the perfect opportunity for SCOTUS to take the case if they planned to interpret the ADA as not applying to business' websites. They could hypothetically weigh in on the case after Dominos has a full trial with all the facts, but if they planned to say that as a matter of law the ADA does not apply to Dominoes' website, why would they wait to do so?

And since both "sides" (liberal and conservative) of the Court have at least 4 justices right now, either could have independently granted cert. This is especially true for the conservative wing, which is typically viewed (or typically caricatured, depending on your perspective) as being more business-friendly — and which has 5 justices.

Regardless, thanks for raising this point. You're right that the absence of a cert. denial dissent does not strictly indicate a unanimous vote.

That's awesome to hear, thanks for clarifying.

No, the supreme court prefers to have lots of lower courts weigh in before deciding anything if at all possible. That way there are lots of well reasoned smart people who have thought about the problem and so by considering all different thoughts they are more likely to get it right. They are well aware that they are the last resort and so what they say goes even if it is wrong so they avoid being wrong.

Which is to say, even if the entire court (both liberals and conservatives) thought the lower court decided wrong they probably wouldn't want to hear this case until a couple other lower courts also wrote something - just in case some argument that someone comes up over the next few years points out an angle they hadn't thought of and so they would reverse.

That is a preference though. They can of course do what they want.

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