Posted on by Californiacontrarian

“Runaround Sue” . . . “Runaround Suit?”

Sometimes “good” ideas come purely by serendipity with no malice aforethought – for you non-lawyers, no premeditation. Case in point: Today I was listening to music via Alexa. “Alexa, play 60s music on Pandora.” (BTW, I love my Alexa [Echo by Amazon.]) At the same time coincidentally I was reading the newspaper, and the article I was reading was about California planning to sue FEMA. Apparently FEMA has rejected $306 million in reimbursements for California’s repair of damaged spillways on the Oroville Dam. The bread and butter of this particular situation is not of critical importance here, as the important concept is that California is again involved legally with the federal government.

In 2017 California filed multiple lawsuits – 24 of them in 17 different subject areas against the Trump administration. These suits include the Travel Ban, D.A.C.A., the Border Wall, Sanctuary Cities, Immigration Enforcement, Transgender Military Ban, Birth Control, Obamacare, Student Loan Protection, etc.! By February, 2019 California was planning its 46th lawsuit against the Trump administration.
Two questions:

Q. Who is paying for all of these lawsuits?

A. California’s war against the Trump Administration is costing state taxpayers millions of dollars for lawyers and other costs connected to nearly four dozen lawsuits.  The price tag for the California vs. Trump war was $9.2 million for the 2017-2018 fiscal year ending June 30, 2018, up from $2.8 million the previous year — which included six months of the president’s first year in office. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, a Democrat and former 12-term member of the House, justified the spending, while Republican leaders and taxpayer advocates say the lawsuits amount to a political stunt and a waste of taxpayer money. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has sued California three times, including over its sanctuary state law and the state’s new net neutrality law. Defending against these suits is also not cheap.


Q. Why so many anti-Trump lawsuits?

A. Certainly anger and spite are involved, and it is always easy to spend money that is       someone else’s, i.e. the taxpayers! But there is another obvious reason. These cases will all eventually be heard in the IX Circuit Court of Appeals that will  assuredly side with California.
Now here’s where Alexa came in. At the same time as I was reading about the latest California disagreement with the federal government, Alexa was playing “Runaround Sue” by Dion from 1961. That’s when the lightbulb went on! What if ? ? ?
What if the cases that were headed to one of the Appeals Courts, were first randomized, and could go then to any of the thirteen Appeals Courts. Sure these California anti-Trump cases could end up in one of the more liberal Courts of Appeal, but at least there would not be malice aforethought. Similarly suits filed in Texas could end up in the IX Circuit Court of Appeals! What fair for the goose, etc.!

For those of you that are against my “out of the box” thinking, do you not think that my “Runaround Suit” idea would decrease the number of vitriolic law suits if the ruling by the Court of Appeals was not pre-ordained?

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