7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals

The Seventh Circuit has ruled that a $55 million cemetery trust fund isn't off limits from the creditors of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, the Associated Press reports. Sex abuse victims and their lawyers argue that the trust fund was created to shield money from them. The archdiocese has filed for bankruptcy because hundreds of sex-abuse victims have filed claims against the archdiocese.

The archdiocese argued that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act protected the trust fund from a court-appointed committee the represents sexual assault victims and other creditors in bankruptcy court, but the court rejected that argument because creditors aren't the government.

The Seventh Circuit ruled that the Chicag0 Sun-Times broke the law when it published the heights and weights of Chicago cops who acted as fillers in a police lineup, Kim Janssen reported for that newspaper. The cops' height, weight, eye color, hair color and months and years of their birthdates were private information that was improperly obtained from the officers' drivers licenses in violation of the Driver's Privacy Protection Act, the court ruled.

The lineup involved former Mayor Richard M. Daley's nephew, who threw a deadly punch that killed a man, and who was investigated by the newspaper for allegedly getting preferential treatment from the police.

The Seventh Circuit ruled today that Indiana's and Wisconsin's bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional, the Associated Press reports. Judge Richard Posner, writing for the court, opined that “'the challenged laws discriminate against a minority defined by an immutable characteristic, and the only rationale that the states put forth with any conviction — that same-sex couples and their children don’t need marriage because same-sex couples can’t produce children, intended or unintended — is so full of holes that it cannot be taken seriously,'” the Wisconsin Gazette reports.

Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman, who sits in Louisiana, became the first judge to rule that a state-level ban on same-sex marriage was constitutional, the AP also reports. According to the news wire, Feldman opined that "gay marriage supporters failed to prove that the ban violates equal protection or due process provisions of the Constitution. He also rejected an argument that the ban violated the First Amendment by effectively forcing legally married gay couples to state that they are single on Louisiana income tax returns. Furthermore, states have the right to define the institution of marriage, Feldman wrote."

The Seventh Circuit has overturned a "landmark order requiring the government to show defense lawyers foreign-intelligence-related surveillance on how a terrorism investigation developed," Politico's Josh Gerstein reports. Judge Richard Posner reasoned that "'the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is an attempt to strike a balance between the interest in full openness of legal proceedings and the interest in national security, which requires a degree of secrecy concerning the government’s efforts to protect the nation,'" according to Politico's report.

The Wall Street Journal's Ed Silverman reports on a rare ruling: brand-name drug manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline must face a Paxil lawsuit from a plaintiff who took the generic version of the drug.

The U.S. Supreme Court has held that generic drugmakers can't be held liable for failing to warn consumers of the risk of their products because they have no authority to change the label approved by federal regulators for the brand-name version.

But the Seventh Circuit denied a bid by GSK to dismiss the lawsuit even though the plaintiff took a generic version of Paxil, WSJ reports. GSK's liability stems from designing and labeling the drug, WSJ further reports.

The Supreme Court did not grant certiorari in appeals over allegedly defective washing machines that accumulated mold, The Wall Street Journal reports. "The court's decision to stay out of the dispute marks a breather for justices who in recent years have issued a string of rulings disallowing class-action cases," WSJ notes. The Seventh Circuit and Sixth Circuit held that the lawsuits could be certified as class actions because they involved a uniform design defect.

Politico's Josh Gerstein reports that the 7th Circuit is questioning its authority to review an "unprecedented order giving defense attorneys access to the paperwork supporting secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act orders used to build a criminal case." The 7th Circuit issued a one-page order expressing doubt that it has the jurisdiction to consider the pre-trial ruling. Responses to the jurisdictional question have to be filed next week, Politico further reports.

The Seventh Circuit's Judge Richard Posner has been getting a lot of criticism for allegedly expressing some sort of regret for writing the opinion upholding Indiana's voter identification law.

The line in Posner's new book that caused the stir was: "I plead guilty to having written the majority opinion (affirmed by the Supreme Court) upholding Indiana’s requirement that prospective voters prove their identity with a photo ID—a type of law now widely regarded as a means of voter suppression rather than of fraud prevention."

Posner has been criticized for allegedly doing something that reflects adversely on his impartiality or that detracts from the dignity of the judicial office.

Now Posner writes in The New Republic that he was not expressing ardent regret for his opinion. Posner said he was just advancing the argument in his book "that in many cases judges can’t have any confidence in the soundness of their decisions if they do not have empirical data concerning the likely consequences of deciding the case one way rather than another."

The Economist opined that it was a good thing for Posner to be frank about a "mistake." While Posner is walking back any idea that he expressed that the voter ID case was wrongly decided, The Economist's upshot is still relevant: Posner deserves credit for intellectual honesty about the process of judging. "His reasoned reconsideration is a testament to his willingness to keep an open mind, to listen to counterarguments and to adapt his own view when the evidence warrants a switch," The Economist said today. "Would we prefer our judges narrow-minded, crusty and intransigent?"