SCOTUS Oral Argument in Madigan v. Levin: Appellate Jurisdiction Rears Its Head

The Supreme Court kicked off this Term’s oral argumentstoday, only to have appellate jurisdiction crash the party. The Court had grantedcertiorari in Madigan v.Levin (No. 12-872) to decide a question about the interplay between claimsfor age discrimination under the ADEA and age discrimination claims broughtdirectly under the Equal Protection Clause and § 1983. However, an amicus brieffiled by law professors who (in the words of Lyle Denniston’s excellent argumentrecap) “specialize in the arcane field of court procedure” argued that theSeventh Circuit lacked appellate jurisdiction to decide that issue and,therefore, the Supreme Court should vacate the Seventh Circuit’s decision andreturn the case to the district court.

To give credit where credit is due, Prof. Steve Vladeck(American University) authored the amicusbrief and did a terrific job. The issue attracted a lot of attention at oral argument(full transcript available here),as did a number of other issues that prompted some Justices to raise thepossibility of dismissing the writ of certiorari as improvidently granted. Lyle’srecap concludes:“It would be no surprise,… based on Monday’s developments, that the Court wouldact quickly to get rid of the case, and leave the next stages to lower courts.”