Lori Falce: Fire sales and forum shopping

I love shopping.

Not just picking out the perfect shoes or a great dress. I like grocery shopping. I like vacation shopping. With PowerBall and Mega Millions both in spitting distance of a billion dollars, I’m doing quite a bit of fantasy real estate shopping right now.

I don’t care about spending money. I’m more of a put-it-in-my-cart-and-daydream kind of shopper. What I like is the comparison of it. What’s the best bargain? What’s the best bang for the buck?

That’s the kind of thing that gives judge-shopping its name. It isn’t so much buying a judge. Allegations like that do happen, but they are less common than John Grisham novels might make them seem.

Instead, it is about comparing all of the different venues in the country, deciding which judge is the best option and filing your lawsuit accordingly.

This is all too common. It has been highlighted recently with abortion cases filed in places like Texas with one judge whose rulings make leanings clear. That’s nothing new, however. Plenty of plaintiffs have filed looking for a friendly venue. Plenty of defendants have asked for cases to be pulled from one court to another for the same reasons.

But a new policy from the U.S. Supreme Court aims at curbing the practice in many cases. It would make it more challenging to put civil suits regarding broad state or national issues in front of a hand-picked jurist. Instead, it would rely on random assignment. That happens in most areas. It should happen in all.

The vast array of important cases being fast tracked from district courts to Supreme Court review shows it isn’t just a problem of stacking the deck. It’s putting undue burden on higher authorities and making for confusion as people wonder which rulings are in place at any given moment.

These are important issues. Things like immigration, reproduction, elections, etc., need to have steady, calm review with thought arising from the arguments, not predetermined by the filing.

Every case should be considered like buying a car — with careful attention to the details, the needs, the long-term implications. It shouldn’t be like a Black Friday sale on electronics — with the victor gathering all the spoils in battle determined by timing and location.

I like shopping as much as the next person, but court cases aren’t just about a good deal. They’re about legal precedent that can echo through our national discourse for centuries. That shouldn’t be determined by one judge — any judge — and a fire sale on rulings regarding a particular issue.