Neil Gorsuch thinks employees should freeze to death

[jmowreader]

http://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/15/15-9504.pdf

Short version: A truck driver operating in Illinois in the dead of winter couldn't find his company's authorized truck stop to fuel his rig. He pulled to the side of the road to look for it on the map. While he was pulled over, his trailer brakes froze. He called for roadside assistance, and informed them he had no heat in the cab. (His auxiliary power unit - which provides cab heat - was broken and he didn't have enough fuel to run the big engine just to stay warm.)

The driver then went to sleep in the back while waiting for assistance. He received a call from his cousin on his cell phone. At that time, his speech was slurred, he sounded confused, his torso was numb and he couldn't feel his feet. Dispatch told him to stay where he was. Instead, he unhooked from the trailer and drove the tractor to a gas station to warm up. They fired him for abandoning his load.

The court ordered his trucking company to reinstate him with back pay. Gorsuch didn't like this.

From Gorsuch's dissent:

The trucker was fired only after he declined the statutorily protected option (refuse to operate) and chose instead to operate his vehicle in a manner he thought wise but his employer did not. And there’s simply no law anyone has pointed us to giving employees the right to operate their vehicles in ways their employers forbid. Maybe the Department would like such a law, maybe someday Congress will adorn our federal statute books with such a law. But it isn’t there yet. And it isn’t our job to write one — or to allow the Department to write one in Congress’s place.

And now you know why Trump likes this guy.

[exboyfil]

1. You sure as anything know if he froze to death

waiting on assistance, Gorsuch would have ruled in the company's favor in any wrongful death suit. His reasoning would have been the driver should have done exactly what he did.

[FSogol]

7. Yup, Situational Ethics. n/t

[justhanginon]

2. I assume when the sonofabitch we now are supposed call president

drained the swamp he was looking for appointees to his administration to scrape from the bottom. To a person these are to me the lowest scum that poor as I am I would not let enter my home. They reek of everything I despise and represent the worst of the human condition. I am so sick of this filthy administration already.

[octoberlib]

3. He's also against class action law suits and not big on separation

between church and state. Also , bad rulings on sexual discrimination.


Gorsuch has consistently advocated and ruled against workers and in favor of big corporations. He’s argued for limiting class-action lawsuits against corporations and has ruled against women bringing suits that challenge gender discrimination in the workplace. Such Corporate Court jurisprudence leads to the elevation of corporate interests above the interests of the people, who the Constitution was meant to serve and who the laws were written to protect.

• He was one of the original judges in the Hobby Lobby decision, in which the Tenth Circuit ruled that corporations are people and that they can refuse to cover birth control as part of their employees’ health insurance. The ruling that Gorsuch joined disturbingly allowed corporations to use religion as a guise to discriminate against women.

• He ruled that a police officer did not use excessive force when he killed a young man by shooting him in the head with a stun gun, contrary to his training manual. The man had been stopped by police after he admitted that some marijuana plants were his, at which point he ran off. At no point had he committed any violent acts. At a time when the abuses of our criminal justice system are becoming a national crisis, we cannot confirm a justice who does not understand the role of the Supreme Court to protect the most vulnerable among us.

• Gorsuch has supported overruling the so-called Chevron doctrine, an established Supreme Court rule deferring to administrative agencies’ interpretation of ambiguous statutes. Even Justice Scalia rightly noted, “n the long run, Chevron will endure and be given its full scope” because “it more accurately reflects the reality of government, and thus more adequately serves its needs.” Overruling this precedent would cause far-reaching repercussions and serious harm to everyday Americans. The doctrine is crucial for worker protections, scientific advancement, and more. http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/

[onenote]

4. He won't have to overrule Chevron

The repubs in Congress have proposed getting rid of it via statute.

[appal_jack]

5. Idiot Gorsuch willfully ignores American/enlightenment concepts of rights.

The very core of our Constitution rests upon the ideas that (1) just government only legitimately rules with the consent of the governed, that (2) our rights are natural and expansive and government's powers are narrow and exist only where specifically enumerated.

A person's natural right to life is as fundamental as it gets. A (government-chartered) corporation's 'right' to property is always subordinate (corporate personhood and rights are notions I contend every founder would dispute: generally-respected but not inalienable corporate prerogatives and privileges are certainly possible and even arguably necessary in complex societies).

The fact that Gorsuch does not see this should immediately disqualify him from the Supreme Court. Hell, it should disqualify him from a mid-level appellate position.

-app

[joshcryer]

9. This is exactly what I was trying to express, though not as eloquently.

This is a fundamental, irrevocably broken, misunderstanding of the rights, not granted, but acknowledged, whether ever expressed in the history of time before or not, by the constitution. The right to protect ones well being is pretty much a no brainer. This very narrow and specific scenario is but one of many infinite scenarios such a right would exist.

Unbelievable.

[appal_jack]

14. You said it well, also.

Thanks joshcryer. It's going to take all our minds and hands working together, each bringing what skills and insights we can to stop this madness.

k&r,

-app

[joshcryer]

16. It's hard to explain that the constitution grants extremely broad rights.

People don't understand the idea behind it and it's difficult to put in to words, at least for me.

You rock app.

[jmowreader]

11. If you really want to be disgusted, read the decision in toto

He said the driver was "free" to stay where he was and wait for roadside assistance. Of course, if he WOULD have done that the Illinois State Police would have had to remove his frozen-stiff corpse from the cab. But, you know, it's okay to die for the glory of your employer in Trumpworld.

[exboyfil]

15. Disqualify himself from the human race

actually. I hope someone in the Confirmation hearings asks him the hypothetical about a wrongful death suit by the trucker's family if he waited and froze to death (or was disabled from hypothermia).

[joshcryer]

18. Oh my god, I can't wait for Warren to ask him that question.

You know they're preparing already really tough questions to ask this idiot.

[joshcryer]

6. An utterly terrifying interpretation of the law, and an affront to the APA.

APA = Administrative Procedure Act, which set the basis for which the Department of Labor exists and the basis for which they filed this case. The DoL cannot predict every single scenario that can possibly happen, so reinstating him, after a reasonable action to preserve his well being, was the only reasonable, rational thing to do.

This is an affront to rational free thought, compassion, logic, and all that follows. It's literally saying that because there's no law that says an employee can leave their load behind to protect their well being, that they can't do that. This is absolutely the opposite of the way the constitution exists. The Bill of Rights are guaranteed rights, it doesn't PRECLUDE rights from existing.

And fucking protecting yourself, a priceless, living human being, in freezing weather, leaving behind your load which has tangible value, objectively less than that of a human life (if you believe in human rights) is a fucking right. Protecting your well being is a right.

This guy thinks its not and that the law must make that scenario exist.

[jmowreader]

8. Put yourself in any self-respecting cargo thief's shoes

If it was cold enough outside to freeze the brakes on a trailer, would YOU be cruising the Interstate looking for abandoned trailers? Notice the guy got back to his load and it was still there.

[joshcryer]

10. Even assuming a barren wasteland where bandits roam the frozen streets...

...it should be a no brainer that the right to protect ones well being should be upheld above and beyond the "right" of the "contract holder" to fire him for failing to "protect their property."

Had he frozen to death in the back of the truck I'm sure those same bandits would've had no problem raiding the truck.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

24. Of COURSE the cargo is more important than the human driving the rig.

What is wrong with you?

I wish we had a glyph for irony, not just

I have lived in northern New York State and Minnesota, so I am somewhat acquainted with extremely frigid temperatures. Apparently those who ruled against the driver think that such temps are mere inconveniences, sort of like 50 degrees would be to someone from Florida. News flash: deadly temps are NOT mere inconveniences. They kill.

An instructive read, although a bit off topic, would be The Children's Blizzard by David Laskin. Aside from being a fantastic account of the blizzard that struck the upper Midwest in January of 1888 (NOT to be confused with the Blizzard of '88 which struck the east coast in March of that year), it gives some pretty interesting information about freezing to death.

[ck4829]

12. So, call him Mr. Freeze?

[jmowreader]

13. You mean like the Batman villain? Works for me!

[octoberlib]

17. Also ruled against disabled kids rights

Link to tweet

[leanforward]

19. Just read parts of this thread

You don't rule against the disabled. Likewise, knowing some of the back story on Gorsuch, he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He does not understand the unique needs of the disabled. He does not understand what a life threatening situation will make people do to survive. To me the lower Court made the right call. His dissenting opinion in this truck drivers case speaks loud and clear, he is against life. I'm aware the Appeals Court affirmed the lower Court.

I'm with the Disabled and the truck drivers.

I'm a member of the loyal American opposition.

What's up with the Russian connection?

[cynatnite]

20. My husband has been a truck driver for over 18 yrs...

I would've told him to do the same thing. No load is worth your life.

Gorsuch is a fucking tool.

[calimary]

21. As my late mother used to say - "heart like a BB."

[hollowdweller]

22. I heard Schumer

Point out he had many rulings for companies over people.

I think this is the Dems strategy. Find stuff he did and then use it to shame Trump on the populist themes he ran on.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

23. Holy Hell *which is where he belongs*! GodDAMN what a bottom-feeder.

Slimy WORM!!!! _

[niyad]

25. more sickening info on this scum