- Jurisdiction
- US Federal Law
I am operating on the assumptions:
1. Statutory law is often obtusely written
2. Markets can be effected by specific legal interpretations
3. Lack of clear statute or precedent may create market uncertainty that diverse parties by desire to rectify.
An example might be the current case before SCOTUS: Oracle v. Google, where Oracle is suing Google, asserting that Application Programmer Interfaces (APIs) are copyrightable. The result of this case will have industry wide financial implications. Notably both the companies have large back catalogs of products that have well developed API's, many of which aren't currently monetized. If Oracle wins, the software market will completely change, and established players will have a much more dominant position. So there may be some question about the veracity of the two parties dispute.
I have listened to a few SCOTUS oral arguments in the past, and read the respective decisions. I was somewhat disappointed because I was reading the nature of the disputes in ways that I thought had Constitutional significance that were frankly never debated.
This has made me wonder about whether certain precedents have been contrived by parties who were not in fact debating against each other, but instead putting on a kabuki theater for the court.
My question regards the legality of that.
I am aware that it is the case that companies will sometimes sue each other to move assets around. The lawsuit mitigates liabilities related to third party partner agreements. In other words: if you sue me, I can give it to you, even if I promised somebody else I wouldn't do that. (please don't throw me in that briar patch!)
From an activist standpoint my thoughts pertain to certain low percentage legislation. Stuff like campaign finance reform that will never see the light of day on the floor of the U.S. Congress, but might pass in a smaller jurisdiction.
So here is my hypothetical:
A county passes a campaign finance law. A local friend sues, and repeatedly appeals all the way to SCOTUS. Both parties intend for the law to be found Constitutional, but one is debating for, and the other against. Both fully disclose to one another their debate strategies before hand, but don't disclose to the court that they are working together.
Given that SCOTUS will objectively interpret the Constitution then it shouldn't matter whether the parties are in cahoots. The above approach gives the appearance of being underhanded. But if the statutory law in a given jurisdiction is unable to be Constitutionally sound (jim crow laws for example) you aren't obligated to honor them. So perhaps an approach to legislative activism, is to create a precedent in a lower jurisdiction, then use it to sue in a larger more corrupt one?
So my questions are:
1. So is it unlawful to share your strategy and intentions with your opposing counsel?
2. Is it unlawful for both counsels to have the same intent?
3. Is it unlawful to bring a lawsuit solely for the purpose of creating bench law?
4. Is it reasonable to consider that SCOTUS has probably been gamed?
5. Are there / should there be, disclosure requirements to address gaming SCOTUS?
1. Statutory law is often obtusely written
2. Markets can be effected by specific legal interpretations
3. Lack of clear statute or precedent may create market uncertainty that diverse parties by desire to rectify.
An example might be the current case before SCOTUS: Oracle v. Google, where Oracle is suing Google, asserting that Application Programmer Interfaces (APIs) are copyrightable. The result of this case will have industry wide financial implications. Notably both the companies have large back catalogs of products that have well developed API's, many of which aren't currently monetized. If Oracle wins, the software market will completely change, and established players will have a much more dominant position. So there may be some question about the veracity of the two parties dispute.
I have listened to a few SCOTUS oral arguments in the past, and read the respective decisions. I was somewhat disappointed because I was reading the nature of the disputes in ways that I thought had Constitutional significance that were frankly never debated.
This has made me wonder about whether certain precedents have been contrived by parties who were not in fact debating against each other, but instead putting on a kabuki theater for the court.
My question regards the legality of that.
I am aware that it is the case that companies will sometimes sue each other to move assets around. The lawsuit mitigates liabilities related to third party partner agreements. In other words: if you sue me, I can give it to you, even if I promised somebody else I wouldn't do that. (please don't throw me in that briar patch!)
From an activist standpoint my thoughts pertain to certain low percentage legislation. Stuff like campaign finance reform that will never see the light of day on the floor of the U.S. Congress, but might pass in a smaller jurisdiction.
So here is my hypothetical:
A county passes a campaign finance law. A local friend sues, and repeatedly appeals all the way to SCOTUS. Both parties intend for the law to be found Constitutional, but one is debating for, and the other against. Both fully disclose to one another their debate strategies before hand, but don't disclose to the court that they are working together.
Given that SCOTUS will objectively interpret the Constitution then it shouldn't matter whether the parties are in cahoots. The above approach gives the appearance of being underhanded. But if the statutory law in a given jurisdiction is unable to be Constitutionally sound (jim crow laws for example) you aren't obligated to honor them. So perhaps an approach to legislative activism, is to create a precedent in a lower jurisdiction, then use it to sue in a larger more corrupt one?
So my questions are:
1. So is it unlawful to share your strategy and intentions with your opposing counsel?
2. Is it unlawful for both counsels to have the same intent?
3. Is it unlawful to bring a lawsuit solely for the purpose of creating bench law?
4. Is it reasonable to consider that SCOTUS has probably been gamed?
5. Are there / should there be, disclosure requirements to address gaming SCOTUS?